The Society of Vampires
by JanSuch
Summary: Follow-on to Camping Trip. Nikola is a full time resident at the Sanctuary. His relationship with Helen is changing slowly, and they go together on an investigation. Of course they run into more than they expected.
1. Chapter 1 Flower Power

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Sanctuary or the Sanctuary characters, I'm making no money from this, etc.

Helen Magnus walked through the silent halls of Sanctuary to her office. It was early, not yet seven a.m. She flicked on the light and approached her desk and stopped. There was something on her desk that hadn't been there last night when she left.

She approached with caution, taking a dagger off its mount on the wall. It looked like a branch. She poked it with the dagger, but it didn't move- it was indeed just a branch. Some type of evergreen, with a flattened, spray-like branch system- Arborvitae? What in the world was it doing on her desk, and who had put it there?

She frowned and gingerly picked it up and dropped it in the wastebasket. Some sort of odd joke, perhaps, although she couldn't see any point in it. She replaced the dagger and sat down to work. The evergreen branch nagged at her a bit, as if there should be some meaning to it, but she couldn't think of anything. And since no one had popped in with a camera to take a picture of her poking it with a dagger, she put it out of her mind.

The morning passed in with the normal fervor of ordinary tasks and crisis management. At noon, she decided to take a break and walk around and see how everyone else was doing.

Will's office door was closed and the "Private" sign was hung up, so she continued on without bothering him. He was likely in session with one of the resident intelligent abnormals, there were two or three that were having some difficulties adjusting to their new living conditions.

She peeked through the door into the lab. Henry and Nikola were both there, and miracle of miracles, it was quiet and they were both working intently. She could see mounds of paper and drafting implements by Nikola, so he was working on his patent applications. Henry had some disassembled sensors scattered around, so he was either doing repairs or upgrading. Either way, they were both being productive. She eased the door closed silently.

She went back to her office and resumed her duties. The afternoon passed quickly and she was able to reduce her backlog significantly. No one interrupted her with any complaints or problems. In a way it was nice, but it seemed odd. Apparently Nikola was still behaving himself, which seemed even odder. Still, he was now an employee of sorts, so that might be having an effect.

He'd called his New York hotel and had his trunks shipped and taken a quick jaunt to pack up a few other things, arriving back at the Sanctuary about the same time as his trunks. She hadn't seen very much of him, since when he wasn't working in the lab he had been unpacking and settling into his new suite, right next door to hers.

She had been concerned about him being that close. She had expected him to show up at her door at odd hours or start tapping on the wall or something, but so far he had been a model neighbor. She was almost disappointed.

She picked up a bite to eat in the kitchen at dinnertime, and returned to her office to work until about eight p.m. She decided that was enough for one day, and went to the library.

The new Sanctuary library dwarfed the old one. She loved the idea of so much more reading material at her fingertips, but the downside was that now she had to search for books. In her old library she had known exactly where everything was, but the new library was haphazardly arranged, at best. She resolved to make some time to fix that, but not tonight.

She relaxed for an hour with a new book and a glass of wine, and found herself hoping Nikola might stop by, but he didn't show. Eventually she took the book to her room and read for a bit before bedtime. It seemed she was seeing less of him since he moved in than she had when he was just visiting.

In the morning she started later than the previous day, a little after 7:30, but when she walked in to her office, there was something on her desk again. It was a pear. She frowned. That wasn't right, it wasn't supposed to be the fruit, it was supposed to be . . . the flower?

She stared at the pear. It couldn't be what she was thinking, who would even know these days? Oh, of course. And since Nikola stayed up late, he could come to her office after she was asleep and do whatever he wanted. She considered locking the door, but there was no point, he would probably enjoy magnetically manipulating the tumblers to open it. It wouldn't even be a challenge for him.

She needed to find out what he meant by leaving her an evergreen branch and a pear. She went to the library and started searching. It was such a small book, published back in the 1880's, but it should be in the huge room full of books somewhere.

It took her over three hours, but she found it mostly by luck buried in with the gardening books. "Language of Flowers" was very dusty, and no wonder. She doubted anyone had tried to communicate in that way in at least 70 or 80 years, probably longer.

Of course she could be completely wrong, and a deranged person could be leaving her plant parts, but she doubted it. She looked up Arborvitae. It meant "unchanging friendship". Well, that was all right she supposed, they had been friends a long time. And pear meant "affection". She liked that much better.

It was nearly 11:00 a.m. Nikola was likely in the lab by now, so his room would be empty. She was perfectly willing to play his silly game. It could be fun, and the rest of her team would have no idea what they were doing, even if they ran into one of the bits of flora involved. The trick was finding something that expressed what she wanted to say that she could get hold of. The light outside was mostly artificial, but it had been designed to provide all the light spectrum plants needed, so there were rather pleasant gardens around the underground Sanctuary.

She found something perfect, and they did have a London Plane tree in the garden. It simply meant "genius", which he would like. The tree wasn't blooming, but Nikola was apparently willing to use a loose interpretation of the language, so it didn't matter. He probably didn't know one kind of leaf from another, so it would be a challenge for him to figure out what she had said.

She took a small branch with four or five leaves and went by the lab and peeked in. He was there, so his room was empty. She hurried to it and found it unlocked, which didn't really matter since she had a master key, and put the branch on the small desk in the sitting room. She went back to her office and started to work, snacking on the convenient pear.

Biggie came in a few minutes later. He looked at her quizzically, and asked "What did you need the branch for?"

Drat, she had been seen. She smiled and said pleasantly "It was just a gift for someone." She kept smiling at him.

He looked conflicted; he wanted to ask for details, but he didn't want to be nosy. Finally he just grunted and left.

She quit work early. Things were quiet right now, and she was fairly well caught up on everything. Besides, she wanted some time alone in her room to study the little book. She wondered where Nikola had gotten one; likely he had picked up a more recent edition on his trip to New York.

She looked forward to the morning, anticipating another message. She woke early, and went down to her office in her robe and slippers. She felt like it was Christmas morning. On her desk was a handful of small purple flowers, along with a plastic cow and a plastic sheep. What?

She picked up the flowers. They had a very nice spicy fragrance. But the plastic animals had her stumped. What did they have to do with the Language of Flowers? Then she got it- Nikola was making it easy for her, leaving her a hint to the identity of the flowers; they were "stock". She looked it up- "lasting beauty".

_Very nice_ she thought. _ I shall have to come up with something equally pleasant for Nikola._

Unfortunately, when she found the message she wanted, she didn't have the flower. Well, then she would go him one better than his plastic animals. She found a particular perfume and liberally laced one of her old handkerchiefs, and got a small plastic figure from one of the abnormal children.

It was still too early for him to be up, so she decided to leave it in the lab for him. But she was so intent on her latest message she had forgotten Henry would be there. She was a little embarrassed at leaving her gift in front of him, but there was no reason to be secretive, really. She placed the little plastic Indian and the handkerchief in the middle of Nikola's papers.

Henry looked at the items; he looked at her, back at the items, and back at her.

"Uh, that's for Tesla? I suppose you don't want me to tell him who it's from, right?"

"Not at all; Nikola will know perfectly well it's from me. After all, he started it. And tell him to return the Indian to Tomas, Karon's son."

Henry nodded, but he looked worried. What was going on? What had Tesla started?

Nikola sauntered in a little after 10:00 a.m. He lifted the embroidered handkerchief by the corner as if he really didn't want to touch it, but then noticed the perfume. He also noticed Henry watching him intently.

He apparently changed his mind about the handkerchief, and tucked it in his pocket. He picked up the Indian.

Henry said "She said to give it back to Karon's kid Tomas."

Nikola flicked it over to Henry who scrambled and caught it.

Henry said "No, she said you were to give it back."

"Do you know who those people are?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Do you think I know who those people are?"

"Oh. Probably not." Henry left, taking the plastic figure with him.

Nikola took out the handkerchief and gently inhaled the perfume. Indian jasmine meant "attachment". Perhaps he was making progress.

Overnight he left her Austrian roses- "Thou art all that is lovely". Well sort of, he wasn't sure what an Austrian rose was, so she got six pink roses and a tiny Austrian flag.

By the next day, everyone knew something was going on between the Sanctuary's two oldest residents. But no one knew exactly what.

Will came to see her early the next morning. Henry had told him about Helen leaving odd things in the lab for Nikola, and Biggie had told him about the leaves she had taken, as well as the evergreen branch he had found in the trash, and the plastic animals now residing on her desk.

He hesitated inside the door, and said "hey". She said "hey" back, and he walked over to her desk and looked at the plastic animals, and the roses and flag.

"I heard you and Tesla have been exchanging . . . unusual items. Is everything all right?"

"Everything is fine."

"You're not, like, mad at each other or anything?"

"Absolutely not. Is there some reason I should be angry with Nikola?"

"Uh, no, it's just everyone is kind of wondering what's going on."

"And you were delegated to find out?"

"Hey, I'm your second in command, if there's something I should know . . ."

"There isn't, Will. What's going on is strictly between me and Nikola, and frankly, no one else's business."

"Okay, I can respect that, but . . . not even a clue?"

Helen smiled at him and said nothing.

Will shrugged. "Okay, no clues. Can't blame a guy for trying." He left to report his lack of success to Henry and Biggie who were waiting anxiously for him in the hall. They were disappointed, but decided they were going to keep trying to figure out what was going on.

Helen wasn't sure what to leave for Nikola. Much of the Language of Flowers was designed to be complimentary to women rather than men. She didn't want to discourage him, she was enjoying the game, but neither did she want to encourage him too strongly. She finally left him a handful of peppermint candy. "Warmth of feeling" was the meaning for the peppermint flower. Of course he wouldn't eat the candy, but he would get the message.

But the next morning what was on her desk was only a twig of maple leaves. "Rendezvous"- perhaps he was right, they should stop the game and talk. She left him some of Henry's bendy straws on his papers in the lab- "agreement". There was no need for her to ask where or when, she knew where he would be waiting this evening. After all, the chairs and table had never been returned to the guest room.

A/N: I'm using the 1992 edition of Language of Flowers printed by Dover Publications, Inc.


	2. Chapter 2 Not Going to the Ball

Helen went up on the roof around 8:00 p.m. She thought it might be a little early for Nikola, but he was there with his omnipresent bottle of wine.

He poured a second glass for her when he heard her walking across the roof behind him. She sat down and began sipping the wine, enjoying the view of the lit waterfall.

"How are you coming on the patents?" she asked.

"I've got a lot of the drawings done and Henry is scanning them into the computer. He's assisting with the forms- forms and forms and forms. Yuck. Can we talk about something else?"

"I've been enjoying our 'conversation'."

"Me too, but now I'm stuck. My next step was going to be asking you out on a date, but that's not going to work."

"A date? Why won't it work?" Helen was both interested and wary.

"Where would we go? It's not like we can share a meal together. We each find what the other one eats . . . shall we say 'unappetizing'? And how many hours in travel time would it take us to get to a major city to see a play, a concert, or any type of performance? Helen, you didn't think the cultural isolation thing through before you set up shop here."

"Oh. You do have a point, but I was thinking about work, not social interactions beyond friendship. A walk in the garden?"

"With the kids around. How romantic. Same goes for dancing on the roof. It wouldn't take ten minutes before we had company."

They sat in silence a few moments while Helen digested that. He really had thought about it, which pleased her. But she couldn't think of anything to suggest. There wasn't much privacy at the Sanctuary except in one's quarters, and she was certainly not ready to entertain Nikola in her room or spend the evening in his.

Nikola continued "We could do a weekend somewhere, take in some shows, find some quaint little shops, share a room, and see the sights?" He looked at her hopefully.

"You've gotten ahead of yourself, Nikola. I'm not spending a weekend alone with you. Besides, we both have work to do."

Nikola sighed. He'd hoped she'd agree to the weekend away together, although he knew the 'rooming together' proposition would get shot down.

"I wish I could take you to a ball" he said.

"A ball? I wouldn't have expected that from you. Have you ever actually been to one?"

"Of course. I was quite the toast of the town for a while in New York, and the parties were fantastic. I didn't go to that many, I was working quite a bit, but the ones I did go to were the epitome of conspicuous consumption."

"I can't imagine you enjoying a room crowded with people."

"Hey, vampire; plain old human germs don't have a chance."

Helen laughed. "Well, unfortunately there aren't any Society people down here to throw one for us."

"Remember what it was like? Every day or two you would get one of the fancy embossed invitations and pick out which ones you would grace with your presence. Then you'd get all dressed up, pick up your date and ride together in the carriage with the horses clip-clopping up in front. The early summer air was soft and fragrant with the scent of early flowers, the moon and stars visible above."

"Until one of those new-fangled noisy motor cars came along and spooked the horses."

"Come on, Helen, play along."

"Oh, all right."

"You could see the lights and hear the music and bursts of laughter as you approached the house. The gentleman would assist the lady down from the carriage and they would go in, dazzled by the bright light after being in the dark."

'And the lady might lean just a moment longer than necessary on the gentleman's arm as she exited the carriage."

Nikola smiled. "She might. Inside were the ladies in their beautiful gowns, with their jewelry throwing off sparks of light as they mingled and danced. The gentlemen were all in tails, tuxedoes or uniforms bright with epaulets, braids, medals and swords."

Helen leaned her head back and sipped her wine. "And the most handsome gentleman of all was the one at your side."

"And the most beautiful lady of all had her hand on your arm. There would be champagne and delicacies to sample. The orchestra played beautiful melodies, old and new, and the couples swirled around the dance floor. There were galops and waltzes and even a polka or two."

"The ladies competed to fill their dance cards with the names of the handsomest, most dashing gentlemen."

"And sometimes they danced with someone totally inappropriate and scandalized everyone; like a lowly foreign inventor." Nikola was watching Helen out of the corner of his eye. She seemed to be enjoying this.

Helen said "Everyone exchanged the latest news and watched to see if they could tell who was cheating on their spouse and with whom."

"When the room became too warm, the gentleman might find his partner and escort her out for a walk in the rose garden in the moonlight. And in private he might try to steal a kiss."

Helen laughed a little. "I do remember that. He might or might not be successful."

"And for the last dance, the gentleman would reclaim his partner, and around they would whirl. They would make their goodbyes to the host and hostess, and he would escort her out to the waiting carriage. The air would be cool, and they would snuggle together under the carriage rug."

"But not too much snuggling."

Nikola pouted a little. "Everything would be completely- well mostly proper. The gentleman would escort her to her door, anticipating the touch of her hand, perhaps the touch of her lips."

"A small peck on the cheek perhaps, for a very good friend."

They sat together in silence for a while, smiling at their memories of such events; but they had never attended one together.

"Too bad we don't have a ball to go to" said Nikola.

"It is too bad, but I'm afraid those days are over." Helen finished her wine and stood up. "Do you want to continue to exchange messages?"

Nikola shrugged. "That depends on what else we can think of to do" he said with a suggestive waggle of his eyebrows.

"You are incorrigible."

"You can corrige me anytime you want."

"Good night, Nikola."

/

In the morning Helen's desk was strewn with peach blossoms- "I am your captive". _A bit dramatic,_ she thought. There was also a message marked "urgent" on her computer.

The message was from a Sanctuary team in Eastern Europe. They had been investigating reports of a vampire in the area. They hadn't taken it very seriously at first, since Dracula was a big tourist draw in that region, until they had seen the corpses of two men who had gone cave exploring. The bodies were described as battered, half stripped, and drained of blood. They had been found at the cave entrance, rather than inside the cave, without any gear.

The team wanted guidance. Could it be a vampire, or was there some sort of animal or abnormal that could produce the same results, or perhaps a combination of human thieves and an animal? Did she have any experts on vampires she could send?

_Just one, and I don't know that I can spare him right now._ Helen called a meeting later in the morning with Will, Henry, and Nikola after Nikola was up. She showed them the message.

"There are a great many possible answers here. There are both animals and abnormals that could have produced the physical evidence, and human thieves could account for the missing items" Helen began.

"So you're pretty sure it wasn't Dracula" Will interjected dryly.

"Actually, I'm not. Persistent legends are often based in fact. I doubt the long-dead Prince of Wallachia is killing people, but there is the possibility that this was done by a vampire. I'm not aware of any surviving to the present day, but Afina survived, though in stasis. Nikola, do you have an opinion?"

"Did they send any pictures?"

She passed him two that she had printed. He looked at them, but shook his head. "I can't tell much from these." He passed them on to Will, who grimaced at the grisly, slightly blurry photos.

Helen said "I couldn't tell much from them either. We need two experts on site; one who has a broad range of knowledge and experience differentiating between abnormals and animals, and a vampire expert." All heads turned to look at Nikola.

Helen continued "Since I have the best likelihood of identifying what did this, I will be going. And just in case it does turn out to be a vampire, I want Nikola with me. Nikola, how far along are you on those patent applications?"

Will said "Wait a minute . . ."

At the same time Nikola said "I have submitted the ones most likely to be accepted by the patent office, but there are still several that I need to do, and I should probably look at variations and improvements as well."

Will stood up. "You can't run off to Transylvania with just him. If it does turn out to be a vampire, he'd probably join forces with it and try to take over the world. Again."

"Nikola is part of the team, just like the rest of us, and he's to be trusted just like the rest of us. And it's not Transylvania, it's a border region between Hungary and Romania. Keep in mind, there already is a team there; we will just be augmenting it. Anything else?"

Henry said "I'll boost the signal on a couple of walkie-talkies so you'll have more range if you end up in the cave, which you probably will, and pack your headlamps."

"Thank you Henry. Nothing else? Meeting adjourned."

Nikola stood up, and Will stepped in front of him. "You better make sure she comes back safely" he said seriously.

"I'm surprised you haven't noticed yet, William, Helen can take care of herself" Nikola said. He pushed past Will to go pack.

/

The flight to Budapest was uneventful. The three-person Sanctuary team met them at the airport, and drove them directly to Dagyleta, Hungary, where the bodies were being held. The team introduced themselves: Karl Hofstetter, a fit-looking man of about 50 and the leader of the team; Jerry Carou, a short wiry man and the only abnormal on the team, who called himself a 'wererat'; and Julienne Linderskolm, a blond thirty-something woman who provided tech support.

Helen and Nikola both examined the bodies; Nikola thought the dual pinholes in each neck could be vampire bites, but couldn't see any reason for the rest of the injuries, including significant bruising and scraping before death, cuts on their arms and hands, and broken necks. He thought if a vampire had attacked them at least one of them should have been relatively uninjured except for the bite marks. And while the bodies were pale, lividity showed they had not been completely drained of blood.

"If these two had run into a hungry vampire, I expect one of them would have been knocked aside, hard, and the other one bitten with only minimal bruising from being held still" Nikola explained. "If the second man had tried to pull the vampire off his friend, he could easily have sustained these types of injuries."

"These bodies aren't completely drained of blood, but quite a lot was taken from both. Could a vampire have consumed that much?" Helen asked.

Nikola considered. "Possibly, depending on the size of the vampire and how much blood was lost in the fight. At least one of the defensive wounds hit an artery."

Karl said "There wasn't any blood where the bodies were found, so we figured they had been killed elsewhere and dumped at the cave entrance. There were no drag marks, so they were carried there."

Helen looked perplexed. "Have there been any reports of large felines in the area? Any unusual tracks? The cuts could have been caused by any number of animals, and we don't know if the marks on their necks were related to their deaths, or if they died of broken necks or blood loss from their injuries."

Jerry said "I've been talking to the locals, they didn't say anything about any unusual animals or sightings in the area. And animals wouldn't have taken the men's pants, socks, boots, and knapsacks and left them in their sliced up shirts and underwear."

"So basically, anything usable was taken." Helen said thoughtfully. "I don't suppose any of it has turned up?"

Julienne said "No, I got a list of what they had with them from their families and checked the resale shops in the area."

"Tomorrow we will need to see the cave" Helen told the team. "Be prepared to go exploring. Julienne, you will stay above ground to provide liaison with the Sanctuary. Keep Dr. Zimmerman in the loop on whatever we find."

Julienne nodded. Communications was one of her responsibilities.

They went to the hotel where the team was staying and got rooms for Helen and Nikola. Nikola was a little disappointed that the small hotel had two vacant rooms available; he had had visions of sharing with Helen.

Helen had reviewed the files of the members of the team before she left the Sanctuary, so she knew their backgrounds and capabilities, but there was one thing she needed to see. She had the entire team come to her room.

Helen said "Jerry, I'm familiar with several types of Hyper Accelerated Proteans, but not yours. Please show us your 'wererat' form."

Jerry nodded and said "Sure." He took off his shoes and socks. Then he changed. His feet and hands lengthened and became clawed, his knees bent in the opposite direction, he grew short dark brown fur the same color as his hair, his ears enlarged and his face elongated into a long, pointy snout with two long sharp teeth in the front. The tip of a tail peeked out of one pant leg, but overall his changed body fit reasonably well inside his clothes.

Karl said "He's very strong and quick in that form; he can understand speech but he can't talk well. He can run up any vertical surface as long as it's not extremely smooth. He's too lightweight to be a major fighter, but he can do damage with his claws and teeth."

Nikola looked at the wererat closely, but said nothing. Helen wanted him to start getting used to associating more with the Sanctuary abnormals. Helen was pleased to see he didn't seem at all disturbed or disgusted by the young man's alternate form, just mildly interested.

"Thank you, Nikola and I needed to know what to expect if you transformed. If we were to become separated, we would need to be able to recognize you."

Jerry gave them a toothy smile, and changed back. "Okay, Doc."

Helen let him get away with the informality since they would be working together, and she already liked the young man; he reminder her a bit of Henry. She turned to Nikola. "Your turn."

Nikola didn't like being made a show of, but he understood the need. He vamped, letting them get a good look at his black eyes, fangs and claws.

The three team members stepped back from Nikola, surprised; none of them had realized he was an abnormal.

Karl whispered "Mein Gott, he is a vampire."

"He is the Sanctuary's foremost expert on vampires, for the obvious reason. Keep in mind if we do run into another vampire that Nikola is on our side. I'll want to leave early tomorrow morning for the cave. Anyone have anything to add?"

"If we do encounter another vampire, how do we kill it?" asked Karl.

"I would prefer to talk to him or her before attempting murder" Nikola said mildly. "After all, we don't really know what happened yet or why."

The team was giving each other concerned looks. Helen intervened. "Nikola is right, but if you are attacked, don't bother with religious symbols, garlic, or stakes. Shoot for center mass, and empty your gun into it. That won't kill it, but it will put it down for sufficient time for us to determine how to deal with it."

"Does that go for him, too?" Karl asked, pointing at Nikola.

Helen walked over and got into his face. "Nikola is one of my oldest and dearest friends; anyone who attacks him has to go through me first. Is that understood Herr Hofstetter?"

Karl backed up a step and nodded, but couldn't seem to take his eyes off of Nikola.

"Don't forget, he's on our side." She seemed to be saying that a lot lately. "We'll be leaving at 7:00 a.m. Does anyone have anything to add?"

No one did. The three team members filed out. Nikola remained behind and de-vamped. "Well that was fun. Want to bet one of them shoots me just to see what happens?"

Helen shook her head and said "no one is going to shoot you except possibly for me. Remember, 7:00 a.m. Nikola; go to bed early."

"You couldn't make that ten?"

"No. Go eat, take your medication, and get some sleep."

Nikola gave her a sarcastic salute and left.


	3. Chapter 3 Long Dark Places

In the morning Helen ate breakfast in the hotel dining room with Karl, Jerry, and Julienne. They went back to their rooms to pick up their gear and came back to the hotel foyer to find Nikola, slouched in a chair and looking grumpy. She was pleased to see he was at least dressed more practically than usual in heavy shoes, black twill pants, shirt, pullover vest, and leather jacket. She herself had opted for black leather; if she had to crawl around through rocks, it would at least provide some protection for her skin.

They piled into a rented SUV and drove for an hour down first paved roads, then dirt lanes. They were able to park at a dead end that wasn't too far from the cave.

They walked about 15 minutes before arriving at the cave entrance. The ground in the area was scuffed and trampled. Nikola went out about thirty feet and walked a circular path around the place where the bodies had been found, but shook his head when he came back; no tracks.

The mouth of the cave was a good 15 feet high, a long slit in the rock that widened to five or six feet at the base. Helen handed Nikola, Karl and Jerry headlamps, and Julienne one of the walkie-talkies. Karl had a walking stick, and all of them had backpacks.

The four of them went in, and turned on the headlamps. The area at the entrance has littered with food wrappers and old beer and soda cans. The walls were chalked and painted with words, hearts with names in them, and the like. Apparently it was well known to the local teens.

As they walked further in, the litter and markings gradually gave out. But after two hundred feet or so they did find a chalked "x" on the wall to the left when the tunnel split into two. They went left, looking for further markings.

The tunnel had been dropping gradually, but now went down at a much steeper angle. They came into a small cavern, and found two passageways out, one marked with the "x".

That passage wound around and became quite narrow, and the ceiling lowered to less than six feet. All of them had to watch their heads as they sidled through the tunnel except Jerry.

"Caves and airplane coach class: the two places where being short pays off" he said smugly.

They reached another cavern that opened up overhead to a high ceiling. They paused while Helen tried her walkie-talkie, and found she could reach Julienne, although with a bit of static. She checked in and told her they were following chalked marks on the wall.

The walls were pitted with recesses and tunnels, most of them starting several feet off of the floor, and some far up on the walls. They looked for the "x", but didn't see it anywhere. Had they missed a turning? No, there was an "x", but it was next to the tunnel they had emerged from, a mark for the way back. So there had to be another somewhere.

Karl was using his walking stick to poke into recesses to see which were dead-ends and which might contain a hidden opening. Suddenly he cried out and jumped back.

Something long, dark and sinuous had come out of the recess, followed by a second, a third, and more. Whatever they were there was an entire nest of them.

At first Helen thought they were snakes, but when one paused in front of her she saw it was a slender five foot long dark blue lizard. She had her gun out and waited for the creature to make a move. Karl and Jerry had retreated to the entrance tunnel, and Karl had a gun out as well. Nikola slid behind her, and Jerry was behind Karl.

She didn't want to shoot for fear of ricochets. Bullets zinging about out of control could do more damage than the lizards that had startled them. The lizard in front of her opened its mouth and displayed sharp teeth, long fangs, and a lower jaw that opened very wide. Except for the extra teeth, it looked very much like the mouth of a poisonous snake.

"They're likely poisonous" she called out to Karl. But that was all she had time for. The lizard suddenly came at her with amazing speed. She only had time for one shot, and she hit it, but three more were coming fast toward her fast, and several were converging on Karl and Jerry.

Karl fired at one as well, but missed, the bullet hitting the wall and spraying rock chips, hitting a second wall and a third. He yelled "run!" and he and Jerry took off back down the entrance tunnel. There was no way she and Nikola could get there, they were on the opposite side of the cavern.

"Helen, grab on to me!" Nikola said from behind her.

She turned and saw he had vamped, and leaped on his back, her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. He used his claws to take both of them up the wall.

Unfortunately, the lizards were able to climb too. Nikola aimed for what looked like a tunnel entrance about twelve feet up. He scrambled quickly up to it and looked back. The lizards were coming, but slowly.

It was a tunnel and once inside, Helen dropped off his back onto her feet. They both peered over the edge at the lizards doggedly climbing up after them.

"Son of a bitch, don't those things give up?" complained Nikola.

"Apparently not. They might have young, or they might just really not like us. We'd better get out of their territory."

As they turned to start moving down the tunnel, they saw a chalked "x" on the wall a few feet in.

As they walked Helen said "Good, we're still on the trail. Those lizards could have been what bit our victims in the neck. I didn't notice other bite marks on them, but I wasn't looking closely; with all the other damage such small marks would be easy to miss."

"The toxicology report was clean, no venom" Nikola said. "And I don't think the lizards could have done the other damage."

"Perhaps they're not venomous in spite of appearances. I don't really want to go back and find out do you?"

"No, but that may be the only way out."

"Assuming Karl and Jerry got out all right I would expect them to come back with something to neutralize the lizards; knock out gas perhaps, and cages. Hold up, I think we're far enough away."

Helen took out her walkie-talkie and tried to contact Julienne. The contact was faint and faded in and out. But she thought she was able to convey that she and Nikola were all right and were still following the trail. Julienne said something about Karl and Jerry that Helen hoped meant they were all right and back on the surface, but she couldn't be sure.

"That's likely going to be our last contact" she said, and Nikola just nodded agreement. If they ran into difficulty he might be able to boost the signal, but for the moment there was no need.

They continued walking. The tunnel gradually became easy to walk down. It expanded to about ten feet high and eight wide and the floor was fairly level. It seemed too good to be natural, but neither one of them were experts on caves.

After a while Nikola stopped, flicked off his headlamp and removed it. "Turn yours off too."

Helen could see that it wasn't nearly as dark as it should be with only her headlamp on, so she turned hers off as well and was pleased to see the same sort of phosphorescence she had encountered underground before. This tunnel might lead to an inhabited area, which also explained the even floor.

"This is very much like the tunnels around Praxis. We may run into abnormals at any time" she said quietly. "Keep your eyes open."

"Is it?" Nikola said coolly. "You left me behind on that one, remember?"

"Come on, I made up for it, and in spades if you recall."

Nikola looked over at her and smiled. "Yeah, you did. Want to hold hands? It's kind of a weird date but here we are again in a long dark place . . . "

"Nikola, keep your mind on the task at hand."

He sighed and muttered "Not a supply closet in sight."

Helen just shook her head and they kept walking. They discovered another "x" at a branching, and stopped for a break. Helen ate an energy bar and she was pleased that Nikola consumed a bag of plasma. He turned away from her to eat it; she was becoming more comfortable with his vampire form, but he wasn't sure she was ready to watch him feed. They both put their wrappers in their packs to dispose of later.

"Do you have your medication?"

He patted a zippered pocket in his jacket. "Right here. Don't mother me" he said crossly.

"Sorry, but after that camping trip . . ."

"Not my fault, I had my meds and food and everything I needed until the superbears destroyed the camp." He was getting sulky.

"I know, but sometimes I worry."

"Sometimes I worry about you too, but I trust your ability to take care of yourself."

Helen nodded. "I know you can take care of yourself Nikola, it's just a habit that comes from looking after my Sanctuary team."

"They are pretty helpless."

"Not all that helpless, but they just don't have much experience or know very much."

"Not like us old wise folks." He was out of his mood and getting playful again.

"Let's go on."

They walked on for about an hour, taking two more turnings following the chalk marks, but didn't meet anyone.

Then, faintly, they heard deep voices. The voices got nearer, and three large men came into view. No, not men- vampires.

Nikola immediately vamped and put himself in front of her, facing her.

"Follow my lead and keep your mouth shut. Trust me."

Helen's eyes blazed in anger at him giving her orders, but that quickly faded and she nodded. She did trust him; he had spent decades studying the little accurate material available about vampires.

Nikola turned to face the three vampires. They were dressed alike in leather outfits and wore guns and long knives at their waists; guards most likely. The smallest of the three was four or five inches taller than he and all of them were heavily muscled. Nikola pretended a nonchalance he didn't feel.

What had happened to the two human cave explorers was now clear. When a group of vampire guards had found strange humans in their territory they had attacked. The humans fought to survive, but the stronger, faster vampires had killed them. Then they took whatever they wanted, and dumped the bodies outside their territory.

The three vampires stopped in front of them and spoke to them in an odd language. Nikola said something back, and the three looked at him quizzically. He repeated it, and one of the vampires corrected Nikola's pronunciation and grammar. Helen could understand a word here and there of what they were saying, but not enough to get any sense of the conversation. She could read vampire script fairly well, but she had never heard the language spoken before.

The lead vampire took out his knife. Helen was partly behind Nikola, and reached for her gun, using him to block the vampires' view. But it wasn't an attack. The vampire pricked his finger, squeezed out a drop of blood before he healed, and offered it to Nikola on the blade of the knife.

Nikola understood the gesture from their encounter with Afina. He took the blood on his finger and put it into his mouth. At a gesture from the vampire, he held out his hand to have his own finger pricked, and squeezed out a drop for the vampire to eat.

"I am Golgat, this is Sorgan and Baclack. I do not know you and your blood is odd."

Nikola had no difficulty understanding them now, or in speaking a language he had never heard spoken by a native speaker before. He would have to be careful what he said in front of Golgat though, no way of knowing how many of Nikola's languages he could now understand.

From his reading of vampire history, he knew vampire names followed certain forms. Male names started and ended with consonant sounds, female with vowel sounds.

"I am Teslat. I am a visitor here. If you do not wish us here we will leave." _Please tell us to leave._

Golgat frowned. "I cannot allow a boy to go wandering off on his own, although I see you at least had the sense to bring some food with you." He was looking at Helen when he said that. "Did you run away from home?"

Nikola wasn't totally surprised that Golgat called him a boy. He knew he was young for a vampire at 156, and Afina had called him a schoolboy. Whether he said he was traveling on his own or agreed he had run away from home, the older vampire was likely going to want to contact his 'parents', and there weren't any for him to contact.

"I'm an orphan" he replied sullenly.

"Then it is a good thing you have found us." Golgat took out a small device and spoke into it. "We have a foundling in tunnel four. Send a team to escort him."

They stood there waiting. Nikola knew he had no chance to outfight three vampires, nor could he outrun them. He could augment his speed for a short while, but not nearly as long as a full vampire and Helen couldn't augment at all. He was sure she had her little flat gun, but she would have to pump a full clip into one vampire to stop him; if she tried to shoot all three she would barely slow them down, and meanwhile they would be firing back; Nikola might survive, but Helen likely would not.

He looked at her, but she just raised an eyebrow, waiting for his judgment on what they should do. He gave a small shake of his head. He knew they couldn't take these three, and there were more coming. There could be other patrols as well.

In a few minutes three more vampires in uniform came from a cross tunnel and joined them.

"This is Dompek" Golgat said, introducing the leader of the new group. "He will take you and your slave to where there is food and shelter."

Nikola fervently hoped Helen didn't understand what she had been called. Either she hadn't, or she was showing remarkable restraint.

They docilely followed Dompek and his two companions walked behind them. They were going to be introduced to a society of vampires, which though interesting was probably a very bad idea.

He noticed Helen was walking beside him. "Don't walk next to me, walk a little behind me" he told her.

"Why?" she asked, but dropped back a half step.

Nikola looked back over his shoulder at her; he wanted to see her face when he explained. "Don't speak and don't react. They think you're my slave."

Helen's eyes opened wide in surprise and anger, but she pressed her lips together and managed to suppress everything except an enraged squeak. But her look clearly said 'just wait until I get you alone'.

The guards behind them laughed. One of them said "That's it. Keep her in line, boy."

Nikola grinned back at them, and at Helen. Her eyes narrowed to angry slits; his grin turned sickly and he faced forward again. He had no idea how he was going to get out of this; if the vampires didn't kill him, Helen would.


	4. Chapter 4 Hall of the Vampires

A/N: Names of people and places are invented and are not intended to represent any real people or places.

They walked for about 20 minutes taking a number of turnings. Helen tried to keep track of them, but wasn't sure she could retrace the route. She saw no more "x" markings.

They came out of the tunnels into a huge cavern. There were more guards at the tunnel entrance, and one of them hurried off when they arrived. In the cavern hundreds of people, both vampire and human, went about their business. There was a market of sorts where both sellers and buyers were predominantly human. Helen noticed the vampires in general were far better dressed and looked healthier.

They were taken across the cavern and stopped in front of a raised platform. Dombek grabbed Nikola by his jacket at the back of his neck, kicked his legs from behind, and forced him to kneel. Helen heard the other guards coming up behind her and knelt also.

A tall, richly dressed vampire wearing a gold circlet on his head approached the platform followed by a retinue of ten or twelve other well-dressed vampires. He mounted the platform while his followers grouped themselves on either side.

Dombek bowed deeply and said "Most High Lord, this boy and his slave were found wandering in the outer corridors. He said his name is Teslat and he is an orphan."

Nikola looked up boldly at the vampire king, but Helen kept her head and eyes down, only occasionally flicking a glance up. If she was supposed to be a slave, she would play meek for now, and she didn't want to attract attention to herself.

The king nodded at Dombek. The vampire guard let go of Nikola's jacket, and grabbed his forearm. He took out a dagger and slashed Nikola's palm, getting a good amount of blood on the blade before the cut healed. He offered it to a female vampire who tasted it. She looked surprised, but nodded and passed it to the king, who tasted it as well and then passed it on to his followers.

The king said "Teslat?" He gave Nikola a piercing look.

Afina had picked up his name as well as English from Nikola's blood. Perhaps the king was able to as well. Nikola just shrugged and nodded.

The king was apparently willing to let the name adjustment pass. "You are a mixed blood, but Afina . . . you are too young to carry her blood, she has been in stasis longer than you have been alive. How did you come by it?"

Nikola said "Uh, sir. . . " Dombek kicked him in the thigh. Nikola revised his greeting. "Most High Lord, Afina was taken out of stasis."

One of the king's retinue spoke with alarm. "Out of stasis? When? Where is she?"

Nikola knew he had to be careful what he said, he just wasn't sure what would keep them safe and what would get them killed. "Two humans released her. She gifted me with her blood, and sent me out to reconnoiter before she freed her court. Then there was a huge explosion; the caverns were destroyed, and she and her court were killed. I alone survived."

"She is dead" said the king, looking at Nikola closely, and apparently believing him. "Then you are the last of her line, mongrel though you are. But there is more than just Afina in your blood. There is the human taint, but also blood of an ancient one. Who is it from and how did you come by it?"

"I don't know, Most High Lord."

The king looked down at him in silence for a few minutes. "Unfortunate."

One of his retinue spoke up timidly. "Is he to be rated?"

The king nodded but spoke again to Nikola. "You own this slave? Is she just a food slave or more?"

Nikola didn't know how to answer the question to best protect Helen, so he side-stepped it. "Most High Lord, I value her very highly."

The king chuckled. "Not uncommon for a very young male with a pretty female slave." That got a round of laughter from the other vampires. Nikola didn't like the implication, but if it kept him and Helen together, so be it; let them believe whatever they wanted.

"Do you have any skills or training, boy?"

"I've had some training as a scientist, Most High Lord."

The king looked over at a richly dressed tall male vampire. "Is there a job he can do?"

He shrugged. "Lab Two could use a junior assistant technician. I suppose he is capable of washing glassware and sweeping the floor."

The king nodded. "So be it. Rate him as a bottom Four and let him keep his slave." He turned and left, his court following him, except for one dark-haired female only a little taller than Nikola.

"I am Lady Irinda. I will see you placed." To Dombek she said "Bring him and his slave."

Dombek didn't give Nikola a chance to get up. He just grabbed his collar and hauled him to his feet. Helen quickly got up and stayed close to Nikola as they went to a door in the cavern wall. Dombek opened it, and they found themselves in a smaller room with bright lighting from an electrical fixture in the ceiling. Inside was a desk and chair, a metal table with straps, and a great deal of shelving half filled with boxes. Lady Irinda told Dombek to send for her when they were done, and left.

There were three vampires inside, one stocky female who seemed to be in charge and two big, but scruffy looking males. One of the males took their backpacks and dumped them out on the desk and started going through them.

The female looked at Nikola and Helen and said "Take off your clothes, we need to search you."

Nikola hesitated. "What about some privacy?"

She looked at Dombek who said "He's only a bottom Four, Amollina."

Amollina laughed. " Dombek and I are Fives, and they are top Fours" she said indicating the other two vampires. "Do as you're told or I will have you forcibly stripped."

"Could she at least have a screen and a female to search her? She isn't used to this kind of treatment. And she'll be in a better mood if you show her a little kindness, and that will make my night much more pleasant, if you know what I mean." Nikola leered convincingly; he'd had a lot of practice at it.

The four other vampires laughed. The female shrugged, and called in two more female vampires who unfolded a screen at one end of the room.

"Helen, they are going to strip search us. No choice, sorry, the screen was the best I could do."

Helen took a deep breath and nodded. It wasn't going to be pleasant, but it was just embarrassing, not harmful. "Well, there goes the gun" she said and went behind the screen.

Nikola quickly started to strip off his clothes. He wanted this over as soon as possible. He got down to his shorts when a voice behind him said "Enough, Amollina."

"This doesn't concern you, Dombek. I am responsible for confiscating all contraband, not you" Amollina said angrily.

"He's hardly more than a boy. I'll take responsibility."

"I am supposed to do a complete search, including a body cavity search. You don't outrank me."

"No, but I can beat you in a duel."

Amollina hesitated. "You would fight over this?"

"I've seen how you search incomers, especially males. He's too young."

She gave in. The two male vampire assistants had searched Nikola's clothes, and Amollina tossed them back to Nikola who quickly started dressing. Maybe being a "boy" wasn't such a bad thing after all.

He was surprised they gave him back his own clothes. He had half expected to be given rags or something. He was nearly dressed when Helen came out from behind the screen.

Her search had been simple and direct. One vampire female went through her clothes and confiscated her gun and boot knife, the other did a quick but thorough and impersonal body search. They gave her back her clothes and left while she was dressing.

Dombek left and came back with Lady Irinda. Nikola and Helen were given their backpacks, but their headlamps, the walkie-talkie, Helen's cell phone, and her extra clip for her gun were left on the desk with her gun and knife. Lady Irinda looked at the collection briefly, but then just told Nikola to follow her.

She took them first to a supply room where they were given blankets, sheets, a pillow, towels, and a thin rolled-up mattress. A tall thin vampire was in charge, but humans did the fetching and carrying. Everything was handed to Helen to carry. Nikola took her backpack so she could manage the bulky linens.

Then Lady Irinda led them through the large cavern and down several hallways, and finally to a dimly lit hall almost to the end. The hall was narrow, with multiple pipes running down the right hand side over a series of doors. There was no phosphorescence on that side, and only a little on the left. At the last door she stopped, opened the door and walked into a single room, dimly lit by a small bulb suspended from the ceiling. Pipes ran across the inside walls and across the ceiling. Floor, walls and ceiling were just bare rock.

Immediately to the right of the door was an old steam radiator giving off some weak warmth that left most of the room chilly. Next to that was a large roughly built wooden cabinet, and in the corner a tiny shower. Next to the shower was a toilet, then a large sink, and a waist-high refrigerator. Around the corner on the wall facing them was a small electric stove. Next to that was another wooden cabinet. There was a rickety scarred wooden table and three chairs in the middle of the floor in between the two cabinets.

To the left of the door was an empty space, then a long cot against the left hand wall. Next to it on the facing wall was a two-shelf empty bookcase with a small lamp on it, and a small armoire with a warped door.

Lady Irinda took the rolled up mattress from Helen and dropped it in the empty space between the foot of the cot and the door. She dropped a thin ragged-edged blanket on it.

_The slave's quarters_ thought Helen. Lady Irinda motioned for her to make up the cot with sheets, a warm blanket, and the pillow. The towels were stored in the cabinet next to the shower. There were two large thick bath towels and two thin smaller bath towels. Hand towels were hung on hooks on either side of the sink.

Lady Irinda looked around. "There are supplies in the cabinets. Pots and pans, bowls, tableware and such are in this one, soap and cleaning supplies in that one. If you need anything, return to the supply room. Initial supplies come with the room, but anything additional must be paid for. You will be allowed to run a small tab until you receive your first pay check. Someone will wake you tomorrow morning an hour before you are to report to work, and they will come back to lead you to the lab . After that, you are responsible for yourself."

She looked at Nikola. "My job is done. Anything else you need, talk to your superiors at your work place." She left.

Helen looked around the room. "Home" she said. "It's not much but . . . "

"It's ours" finished Nikola. "I guess we get to room together after all." He de-vamped, knowing that Helen was more comfortable with him in his human form. He wasn't used to remaining in vampire mode for long periods of time, but while they were among vampires he was going to have to stay vamped most of the time.

"Not exactly the Ritz, and we're going to have to work out how we're going to manage any privacy at all" Helen said, gesturing at the toilet.

"I don't care if you watch me, you'll just get to see what you've been missing out on. I promise not to stare at you. Anyway, I'm going to be gone most of the day working, so you'll have plenty of privacy then."

They unpacked their knapsacks and stowed the few things they had with them. Both had some extra clothes. Nikola still had two packs of animal plasma that he put in the refrigerator and Helen had a small medical kit, an energy bar and two small bags of peanuts she put in the cabinet with the tableware.

"I guess the only thing this place doesn't come with is food. I'll see if I can get an advance on my pay or credit at the market tomorrow."

"Yes, you are responsible for feeding me, master" Helen said playfully.

"Hey, I want to try something. Come over here."

Nikola dug around in the tableware cabinet and came up with a very small paring knife. He sat down at the table and Helen joined him curiously.

"You're not much of a vampire, but you have the Source blood. It's possible you could do the 'instant language' trick."

Helen grimaced. "All right, I suppose I could manage to choke down a drop of blood. It would be worth it if I could understand what is going on."

"Hey, I'm sure my blood is yummy." He cut his finger and squeezed out a drop. He gave it to her on the knife blade.

Helen scraped it off with her finger, putting it in her mouth and swallowing quickly.

"Fitsle gribblegrank me? Are you getting any of this?"

Helen's eyes opened wide and she smiled broadly. "I understand you. This is wonderful. I wonder if this would work with non-vampires?"

"Afina could do it, but I don't know if you and I could. Age matters when it comes to vampire abilities. Don't become an expert in the language too soon, fake learning it slowly for a while, okay? And don't forget, Golgat, the king, and his court have my blood so we won't be able to speak privately in front of them."

Helen nodded. "What do you suppose would happen if they find out I have the blood of an ancient one too?"

"I don't know, and until we do, let's not risk it."

"Agreed, at least for now. We'll have to experiment with using blood to transfer knowledge when we get home. It's late; I suppose we should figure out the sleeping arrangements."

"There's nothing to figure out. I sleep on the bed, you get the dirty floor mattress."

"Nikola. I thought you were a gentleman."

"There's no lock on the door. If anyone walks in here, I can't be found sleeping on the floor while my slave uses the bed."

Helen said slowly "I suppose you're right, but I can't say I like it."

"The other possibility is to share the bed" he suggested with a grin.

"Nikola!"

"No one would care if I'm sleeping with my slave, and we could stay warmer together. It would be a lot more comfortable than that skinny little mattress. I'll behave, promise." He looked at her innocently.

Helen looked back at him doubtfully. She knew better than to believe his innocent look. "I suppose we could try it. But I swear Nikola, one hand in the wrong place, and I'm kicking you where it hurts the most."

He shrugged and stripped down to his underwear. He offered her an extra shirt he had brought for her to sleep in, and she made him turn around while she changed. It was long enough on her to be decent, but short enough to show off her legs. When he turned back, he ogled her shamelessly for a moment, but then turned practical.

He held up his dirty socks. "I have a change of underwear, but I suppose we'd better wash as we go."

They found some detergent that would do and washed out their dirty things in the sink together. They hung the damp clothes on the back of the chairs.

Nikola turned on the little lamp and Helen turned off the ceiling light.

"Which side of the bed do you want, wall or room?" he asked.

"You are not trapping me against the wall, I'll take room."

"If I roll over you'll end up on the floor."

"So don't roll over."

He climbed in between the sheets, and she climbed in after him. It was quickly apparent the cot wasn't wide enough for them to lie side by side, so Nikola turned on his side facing her, and she turned on her side and let him spoon her.

Helen had to admit to herself that she was actually comfortable. The cot mattress was both firm and soft, Nikola was warm, and his faint scent was pleasantly male.

Lying with his face near Helen's hair made it hard for Nikola to go to sleep. The scent of her hair and skin made him want to wrap his arms around her, but he kept himself still, closed his eyes, and just enjoyed being so close to her.

They eventually both went to sleep.


	5. Chapter 5 Domestic Life

The rap on the door in the morning seemed to come too early; the room was still pitch black.

_Of course it's pitch black, we're in a cave, it's always going to be pitch black until we turn on a light_ Helen thought drowsily.

She felt Nikola crawl over her and the little bedside lamp went on. She turned over to face the wall, and heard him showering, opening and closing cabinet doors, and puttering around. Finally it was quiet.

"Helen?" Nikola said softly. She rolled over and faced him. He was sitting on the floor next to the bed so their heads were about on the same level. She propped herself up on one elbow.

"All ready for your first day at work?"

He nodded. "Stay in the room today, okay? We don't know how safe it is for you to be out by yourself."

"I'm not going to waste a day staring at the walls. We both need to find out as much as we can about how this society works and how we can get out of here."

"You could inventory what we have, make a list of things we need."

"Which couldn't take more than an hour. Nikola, you know I can take care of myself. You go talk to the vampires, I will talk to the slaves, and we'll compare notes tonight."

"I know you can take care of yourself under most circumstances, but we don't know what the rules are here."

"Now who's being a mother hen?"

"Sorry." There was a long silence.

"Nikola, I'll be careful. You be careful too."

He nodded. "Don't talk to any vampires or look them in the eye. Keep your head down, okay?"

Helen knew how to behave but she humored him. "Okay. I'll be the meek little slave out doing her master's errands."

There was a double rap at the door. "Ready?" a voice called.

"Coming" Nikola called back. To Helen he said "Have a nice day, dear," playing the husband going off to work.

Helen played the game. "You too, dear, have a good day at work." They gave each other a peck on the lips; Nikola vamped and left.

Helen got up and performed her morning rituals. She dressed in her spare clothes, jeans and a heavy shirt; the leather would be too conspicuous.

She decided to go to the market first and see what was available and what the price ranges were. She was going to have to get food, but she had no money. However, she did have an energy bar and two packs of peanuts_. Never go shopping on an empty stomach_; she ate the energy bar.

She found a large basket with a handle in the bottom of the kitchenware cabinet. Tucking her peanuts in her pocket, she turned off the lamp and turned on the overhead light. She didn't want to come back to a dark room.

Not sure exactly how to get to the big cavern, she took a route she could remember, alternating right and left turns. She knew she was going in the right direction as the halls became wider and better lit. The doors were farther apart so the rooms must be bigger, and eventually she came to where the doors had keyholes. Prime real estate was by the large cavern, low ranking vampires had to walk farther to get home.

She emerged into the large cavern from a different tunnel than where they had gone in yesterday, so she mentally marked the entrance. From there she could find her way back to their room.

The market wasn't too busy yet. She walked around looking at the wares for sale. Most of the products appeared to be locally made but not all.

Food for sale was heavily fungus based, with a little expensive meat that looked like various sizes of lizard- including something very large that made her think of the basilisk she and Will had encountered. Jars of lard and packets of salt were also for sale at reasonable prices. But there were also some expensive vegetables and fruit that she thought must have been grown on the surface, so there must be some limited trade going on.

Prices were in whole numbers only; there was no indication of what the units might be.

Besides food there were also a number of homemade items made out of a lightweight wood-like material that she suspected was also a type of fungus, as well as items made out of bone or ivory. There were a few pricey metal items, and some things that were obviously from the surface. Two that she really wanted were a small box of tea bags, and a mirror. She missed her tea, and while she wasn't too concerned with her looks, she didn't want to have her hair sticking out at odd angles. But both were very dear, and she doubted she would be getting either on whatever Nikola would bring home.

There was plain sturdy homemade clothing, as well as a few brightly colored pieces that must have come from the surface. She lingered a while at a booth with rugs; the stone floor was cold in the morning. But the rugs were out of their price range too.

The market was almost exclusively human. There were one or two vampires wandering through the booths, but all of the vendors were human.

Eventually she selected two healthy-looking vendors with clean stalls selling the cheap fungal foods, and offered to trade one bag of peanuts to see what she could get. Bargaining with two vendors paid off. There were no nuts for sale at any of the booths, so she finally got three pieces of different types of fungus each larger than her spread-fingered hand, a jar of lard, a packet of salt, and an onion. She wondered if she had given away the peanuts too cheaply, but she had another bag to bargain with later, and she had enough food for today and tomorrow.

She took her food back to their room, and was glad to see it undisturbed. Of course with all the basics that a vampire would need being given away free, there was likely very little theft in the poorer sections of the underground habitat.

She sliced a little of each of her three types of fungus and fried them in lard, saving the onion for some variety at dinner. One was flavorful but rubbery, one was tender but almost tasteless, and the third was both rubbery and tasteless. She put the remaining fungi in the refrigerator.

There was only one bag of plasma in the refrigerator, so Nikola must have consumed one before he left. She hoped they would find a way out soon. There was obviously plenty of food for vampires available, but she suspected it wasn't animal based. Nikola had sworn off human blood long ago, and she didn't want him to break that oath.

She didn't have a clock or a watch, but she thought it might be early afternoon. She went through the cabinets, and used a pen and paper from her backpack to write down a number of items they needed: a wastebasket, clothesline and clothes pins, a new pot scrubber, toilet paper, tissues, and a new bar of soap for the shower.

She took her basket and set out again for the supply room. She found her way to the main cavern easily, but she wasn't sure where the supply room was. She asked a passing human and just got a wave in a general direction. Eventually she found it.

The same vampire was still behind the counter. She approached cautiously, her eyes lowered. She wasn't sure about the proper form of address so she decided on generally respectful

"Sir? You remember me? I with Teslat last day. I can get some things?" she said, deliberately mangling the language.

The vampire nodded. "I have the order to extend credit. What do you want?"

"Beginning things free, yes? There no garbage bucket in room, no clothesline or pins, no tissues, no mirror." _Might as well try for whatever I can get for free_.

The vampire frowned. "I'll give you the wastebasket and the tissues, the rest are luxuries and you have to pay. Clothesline and pins are three, a small mirror is fifteen, a large one is thirty."

Helen shook her head. "Too much for mirror. How much for pot scrubbers, shower soap and toilet paper?"

"One for a package of six on the scrubbers, one for a two-pack on soap, and two for a four-pack on the TP."

She nodded and he wrote up a slip. "What is your name?" he asked.

Vampire form? Why not? "Ahelena".

He wrote down Ahelluna, but she couldn't protest; apparently she was expected to be illiterate. He pointed to a place next to her supposed name and told her to make her mark. When she hesitated, he demonstrated how to make an "X". She clumsily made her mark, took her things and left.

So now they owed seven at the supply room. Carrying all her things and thinking about the transaction, she almost bumped into an average looking vampire. She dodged aside in time, but he put out a hand and stopped her. She stopped, trying to look afraid, which wasn't hard.

"That's quite a load you have there. Who do you belong to?"

"Teslat" she said very softly, her eyes down.

"You address me as 'Master'. Try again."

"Teslat, Master."

"What rank is this 'Teslat'?"

"I do not know. We only come last day."

"You're a pretty little thing. Would he sell you? Too bad you're not a public slave."

Helen shook her head hard. "No sell. Sure no sell, Master."

The vampire shrugged and walked away without another word. Helen watched him but he paid no more attention to her. She hurried back to their room, giving wide berth to any other vampires she encountered.

Back at the room, she put away her supplies and sat down. She hoped Nikola would be home soon, there was nothing more for her to do. She wondered if the vampires had a library, perhaps Nikola could borrow some books for her.

/

Nikola followed his guide to Lab Two. Inside he found a very large room with tables of equipment, chalk boards with formulas, a door at the far end and arches in both side walls leading to more rooms. He was wandering around looking at everything when he was stopped.

"You there, what are you doing here?" asked a heavy young male vampire with short reddish-brown hair.

"My name is Teslat, I am supposed to start work here today."

The vampire grinned. "Excellent! I have been looking forward to this. I am Kammick, and now that you're here, I'm the Senior Assistant Lab Technician. Let me introduce you to Eminee, she is the lab tech we report to."

Eminee also appeared young, although Nikola wasn't particularly good at judging vampire ages. She was also beautiful, tall, and graceful with long blond hair. He gave her a big smile with a bit of a leer in it.

"Don't be impertinent, Junior" she said. "Do you know what you are supposed to do?"

Nikola's smile faded, and he shook his head. He knew what someone in his position would be doing in his lab, but it was safer to play dumb and let her explain everything to him in case the protocols were different here.

"You wash and dry anything in the sinks. You clean up any messes on the floor, and empty the trash bins when they get full. You don't touch anything else unless you are told to. At the end of the day you mop the floor. Kammick will put the clean equipment in the storeroom, he knows where everything goes. He'll do most of the fetching for now, but when you both have some time he will show you the storeroom. Don't go in it by yourself unless you are told to. Kammick, show him the janitor's closet and supplies."

"Could I ask a couple of questions?"

Eminee looked surprised, but nodded "Of course."

"I just got here yesterday, so there's a lot I don't understand yet. Is it okay to ask what everybody's ranks are?"

She nodded. "I am a top Four; most of the lab techs are. Kammick is now a Four rather than a bottom Four. Most of the scientists in this lab are top Fives or bottom Sixes. The Sixes and Top Sixes are in Lab one, the bottom Fives and Fives are in Lab three."

"So there aren't any Threes or lower?"

She said "Of course not. Oh, you don't understand the ranking structure. Threes are usually youngsters just starting on their first jobs, or people who don't work at all. And only the slaves are ranked below that. The Twos are privately owned or exceptionally productive public slaves and the Ones are basically the cattle."

Nikola told himself to remember not to say "cattle" to Helen. "Are there ranks above Six?"

"Most High Lord is the Ten, his family are Nines. The High and Low Lords are Eights and Sevens. Anything else?"

"I noticed that different scientific disciplines are represented in the same lab; in fact I didn't see any two scientists working on anything similar anywhere near each other."

Eminee frowned at him. "Of course, lab space is assigned by rank, and why would anyone want a neighbor who could benefit from his work? I don't know where you are from, Teslat, but you certainly have a lot to learn."

Nikola said "Yes, Ma'am, I do." He might as well start practicing being humble, he was going to have to act that way for a while and he wasn't very good at it.

Nikola spent the rest of the day washing flasks and test tubes, emptying the trash, and cleaning up spills. The only difficult part was keeping his eyes down and not correcting the errors he saw on the chalk boards. And keeping his mouth shut. Being spoken to like an idiot child made him want to spear the offenders with rapier wit, but he just barely managed to keep his mouth shut outside of the occasional "Yes, sir" or "Yes, Ma'am".

Some of the experiments looked interesting and he would have liked to have poked his nose in them, but others were likely to produce data that would only support what he already knew. A few appeared to be a total waste of resources, badly designed and not likely to produce anything useful.

The state of science in Lab Two led him to believe that he could get some very fast promotions if he chose to share his knowledge. Even human science was ahead of the vampires in some cases, and Praxian science would blow their socks off.

This was a highly regimented society; if he was a Six he could likely order around the Four and Five ranked guards long enough to get the two of them to the surface. And a scientist could reach that rank; a good scientist, and here he would be better than good.

The thought made him uneasy though. He would be advancing vampire science, and he wasn't sure how Helen would view that. She might lump it in the same category as his zombie vampires or the trust fund vampires. When it came to science he believed that knowledge was good no matter where it led; but SCIU's use of his dog fence to try to kill abnormals made him hesitate. He had always had difficulty imagining how others might use his inventions; what might the vampires think to do with more advanced scientific knowledge? He couldn't imagine.

He decided to consult Helen before acting. She could see such things far more clearly than he could. In the end he would still make his own decision, but her input would be very valuable, and if he explained his own thinking first, maybe she would be less angry if he acted in opposition to her wishes. Maybe.

Near the end of the day he went to Eminee and asked for an advance on his salary. She shrugged and pointed to one of the older scientists. "Ask Master Bolgard".

Nikola approached with the most humble posture he could manage. "Master Bolgard? I am Teslat, I am new here, and I was wondering if I could get an advance on my salary?"

Master Bolgard regarded him silently for a moment. "I suppose you'll be at Kammick's old rate, 40 a decday. I can give you 15 now, but you won't get the other 25 until the end of Nineday. You know we are off on Tenday, yes?"

Nikola nodded. He hadn't even realized the vampire week was ten days long or that he got the tenth day off. "Fifteen would be very good, Master."

Master Bolgard told him to wait, left the lab, and came back a few moments later with a small envelope with bulky coins in it. He handed it to Nikola.

"Thank you very much Master." Nikola didn't know how much food cost, but at least Helen would be able to have something to eat for the next eight days.

It seemed quite late by the time the scientists had all left for the day, but Kammick helped Nikola mop the floors, and when they were done, asked him to go out for a drink. Nikola was very tempted.

"Could we do it tomorrow? I have someone waiting for me."

Kammick said "Really? But I thought you just got here, when did you have time to meet . . .?" His eyes opened wide. "A slave? You have a slave? But you're only a bottom Four, how can you afford it?"

Nikola shrugged. "I probably can't, but she is very special to me, so I will find a way to afford it."

Kammick grinned broadly, obviously making the same assumption all the vampires had been making. "You lucky dog. Tomorrow we're definitely going for a drink. I'm buying, and you're going to tell me all about her."

Nikola grinned back and nodded. If Kammick was buying, Nikola could definitely invent some salacious details to entertain him while Nikola got to sample vampire drinks. His interest in vampire drinks was far greater than his interest in the lab experiments.

Nikola made it to the main cavern without any difficulty. The market was closed down, and he saw no humans, but there were a number of other vampires on their way home, as well as a group of vampire children. It was the first time he had ever seen vampire children and he watched them surreptitiously as they passed. They didn't seem too different from human children of a few decades ago. They didn't have any electronic devices in their hands, but were goofing off with each other and completely ignoring the adults around them.

He made a couple of wrong turns in the residential warren, but he found the right hallway without much delay. He walked in to the unpleasant smell of fried onions and mushrooms, but Helen was done eating and just finishing the washing up. Damp laundry hung from a clothesline hung between the two cabinets.

"There you are, finally. I was beginning to think you got lost."

Nikola plopped down in one of the chairs, relieved at not having to continue the humble act. "No, it was just a long day. I'll be later tomorrow. Kammick wants to take me out for a drink."

Helen smiled. "And you can't resist that. Who is Kammick?"

"He's the guy who got a promotion because I showed up, and a source of information I hope. The local tavern is usually a good place to find out anything you want to know."

"I didn't know there was a local tavern."

"Helen, above ground or below, there's always a local tavern."

"You would know. Did you get the advance on your salary? What is your salary, by the way?"

"Here. I get 40 every ten days, but they gave me 15 up front." Nikola dumped out the envelope. "How much do you need?"

Helen looked through the seven coins, two fives and five ones. "How long does this have to last?"

"Eight more days, and I get a day off after that. I'm going to need some of it to spend at the tavern." Nikola scooped up a five and two ones.

"Nikola, we owe seven at the supply store. I don't know if I can manage to eat on only one a day. By the way, do you know what the unit is for their money?"

"No units, just the number. What did you spend seven on?"

"Things we need, like a clothesline, soap and toilet paper. Nikola, maybe you shouldn't go to the tavern, I'm going to need more than eight."

"Information is important; the more we know the faster we get out of here. If you need more money, you could sell something. Your black leather jacket would probably bring a lot."

Helen was starting to get angry. "I am not selling my clothes; I don't have very much with me as it is. I still have a bag of peanuts I can trade, but that will only get me one or two day's food. And we only have thirty days to pay back the supply store."

"So pay back the supply store after I get my full pay next decday. It's up to you if you keep your clothes and go short on rations." Nikola was getting irritated. He'd had a difficult day, why couldn't she just solve her own problems?

"I'm supposed to give up food so you can go drinking?" Helen was starting to boil.

"You'll work it out, you can take care of yourself, remember? Besides, I'm the one earning the money; I should get to spend some of it."

"Nikola, you selfish bastard."

Nikola lost his temper too. "Hey, you should be grateful you get to live here with me as my private slave. Otherwise you'd be in the cattle pens." Too late, Nikola realized what he had just said.

"Cattle pens? Is that what humans are in this society, cattle?"

Nikola shrugged. They were both too angry and likely to say more things they would regret. The best thing he could do now was shut up and end the argument. "I'm tired, I'm going to bed. Coming?"

"No, I'll sleep on my mattress, thank you anyway Master."

Nikola regretted the argument; but Helen was too angry right now to talk to, and so was he. He felt like he had been crawling on his belly all day and he wasn't about to apologize. And tomorrow wasn't going to be any better; in fact, it would probably be worse since he wouldn't have anything new to analyze in the lab, just the same things he had already picked apart in his mind. He did have a right to some of the money. Just because she controlled the purse strings back at the Sanctuary didn't mean she got to control them here.

Nikola got undressed and got into bed. It seemed awfully roomy and cold. He realized he was still in vampire form. He'd never slept that way before, but he might as well see what it was like. They might be here a long time, and the more vampire he was the better.

Helen got undressed and put on Nikola's extra shirt. She felt like throwing it at him, but his shirt was longer than hers and better for sleeping. She rolled herself up in the ragged blanket and lay down on the thin dirty mattress.

She was sure she was right. The basic needs of either of them should take precedence over the other's entertainment. She was chilly and the mattress provided very little cushioning. It was going to be a miserable night.


	6. Chapter 6 Gathering Information

A/N: Thank you to all who have been reviewing. Tiem625, keep looking, there are quite a few good authors on this site.

Helen awoke the next morning when Nikola turned on the lamp. She kept her eyes closed and pretended to sleep. She didn't want to get into another argument; she wanted time to try to think of a way they could resolve their financial differences.

Nikola got ready for work quickly, putting on clean clothes off of the clothesline. He felt guilty about their argument last night, especially while putting on the clothes she had washed for him. He wanted to write a note apologizing, but he couldn't think of anything that seemed right beyond "I'm sorry", and that alone just seemed lame. He couldn't think of anything in the Language of Flowers for "I apologize", and he didn't have any resources to play that game anyway. Too bad, Helen had been enjoying it, and he had to admit, so had he.

They would talk tonight; maybe he could think of some way to get more money before then. He imagined her smiling at him as he gave her more coin. He wished he had something he could sell for her, but all he had were his clothes and his wallet. Did he have anything in his wallet he could sell? He checked; he had his driver's license and credit cards, but all his cash was gone.

It must have been taken during the search, which made sense since there was obviously trade going on with the surface. None of the vampires were walking around in homemade clothes or shoes, and one of the scientists at the lab had been reading a newspaper on his break.

Nikola went to work. Yesterday playing janitor had been mildly entertaining. Today it was just boring. He tried to think of a way to make money while washing glassware.

There had to be some value to his ability to spot the scientists' mistakes. Maybe he could make something out of vampire pride. They seemed so rank conscious and competitive, they would likely hate being caught out in an error. He certainly hated it, although it had been years since anyone had found an error in his work; after all, who else was intelligent enough to even understand it?

When he got the chance he pulled Kammick aside.

"Kammick, I'm kind of a scientist, and I've been reading the chalk boards. What should I do if I spot an error?"

Kammick looked at him warily. "Be very careful, Teslat. If you accuse a scientist publicly of error, you had better be right, or you will be punished."

"What kind of punishment?" Nikola asked. He was curious but not at all worried; he knew he was right.

"The scientist will likely beat you for insulting him and your pay will be docked. You could even be fired."

"What if I'm right?"

"Then the scientist will be publicly shamed. He'll hate your guts and do everything he can to make your life miserable. And that's quite a lot; you'd be better off being wrong and getting fired."

"What if I just tell him privately?"

Kammick looked stumped. "I don't know. I don't understand enough of this stuff to find errors. If somebody has done that before, then nobody else would know, right?"

Nikola nodded. He'd found the perfect board to experiment with. There was a major mistake in the fourth statement and another in the ninth. He could give the scientist the correction to the ninth without giving him anything useful, since everything after the fourth was wrong anyway.

The scientist was a top Five named Duntid. He was a tall, thin vampire with wispy hair who had the habit of wrinkling up his nose as he worked. Nikola could see he was struggling, and Kammick had told him he had just been promoted from Lab Three. If the jump in ability from Lab Three to Lab Two was that extreme, Nikola really wanted to see Lab One.

Nikola wandered over to Duntid's station and checked his sink for something to wash. But Duntid was still working on his theory on the chalk board, and his station was clean and empty.

Without looking at him Nikola said quietly "There's an error on your board."

Duntid spun around away from the board. "What did you say?" he hissed.

"There's an error on your board. I don't want to make a public scene of this, do you?"

Duntid looked away from Nikola and pretended to be talking to himself. "There is no error. You are the cleaning boy, what do you know?"

"I'll bet you five that I can show you the error. If I'm wrong, you get five. If I'm right, you pay five but you just quietly spot the error yourself and correct it. Deal?"

"Show me your money."

Nikola dug the coin out and held it low where the work station would block everyone else's view.

Duntid said "Alright, tell me where the error is."

"In statement nine, the last term should be "2Y2", not "2Y".

Duntid stared at the board and gasped. He took a five coin out of his pocket and set it unobtrusively on the counter still without looking at Nikola. "Go away" he whispered.

Nikola casually slid the coin into his pocket and wandered off to empty the trash at the next station. So now he had another way to make money, but he would need to be careful not to be spotted, and take care in who he approached. The senior scientists would be far less easy to blackmail and far more dangerous to offend.

Nikola entertained himself the rest of the day checking the other boards for multiple errors, or errors that could be corrected without any appreciable difference. He found two possibilities, but he wasn't going to try confronting either scientist unless he absolutely had to.

But after that he had nothing to do except clean. This job was so boring and he found himself snarling a bit when another idiot so-called scientist ordered him to clean up a spill. Nikola stopped himself and made his face go blank. This was the only job he had or was likely to get, and he needed the money to support Helen.

At the end of the day he and Kammick mopped up and left for the tavern. It was off the main cavern and unobtrusive. But there was no doubt what it was as soon as they walked in.

It was a large room with tables and a bar, and an odd smell permeated the air. There were no humans, both the staff and the patrons were all vampires. Most of the patrons had either large glasses of a greenish gold liquid, or small glasses of a reddish liquid. They sat down at an empty table and Kammick ordered slivvo for them and paid two. The drink was the reddish liquid.

Nikola sipped it and barely kept himself from choking. The fumes went up into his sinuses and the drink slid down his throat like acidic fire; it was warm all the way down to his stomach. He'd never had anything like it, and he felt it in his head a few moments later. Whatever it was made out of, he could get drunk on it, but as far as the taste went, the rawest cheapest wine was better.

"Good?" Kammick asked, chuckling at Nikola's reaction.

"I've never had anything like it." Nikola said truthfully. He wished he could do a chemical analysis. Maybe he could find something to add to wine to give it a kick.

"You have to be an adult to drink slivvo."

They drank companionably for a few minutes. Then Nikola asked "Kammick, that's a nice shirt. Where did you get it?" _How do things get down here from the surface?_

"You like it? I got it at the market, of course."

"I didn't see anything like that at the market, just a lot of fungus."

"Not the common market, that's mostly for the slaves and their patrons. The market for us. Nobody showed you?"

"Uh-uh. Will you show me tomorrow? And what do you mean by patrons?"

"Wow, you really are a newbie. Our market is in the next hall over. It's closed now, but you can probably stop in on your way to work, they open early. If you can't find it I'll show you tomorrow."

"And the patrons?"

"Public slaves belong to everyone. Anyone can do pretty much whatever they want to them, except kill them. Well, we can kill them, but we have to pay a big fine if we do, and a smaller fine if we feed on any that aren't in the pens. So some of the slaves have patrons that give them protection and get half the slave's earnings in return. Like the vendors in the common market. Without a patron, people would just take all their stuff. There's a mark on every booth that shows who the patron is."

Nikola nodded as he sipped his second drink. "What's the other drink?" He waved at the next table that had the greenish liquid.

"That's clatch, it's less potent than slivvo. It's okay if you're thirsty; but don't mix it with the slivvo, it will make you sick."

They finished their drinks and Kammick ordered two more. Nikola took out a couple of coins, but Kammick waived him off. "I'll get it tonight. I owe you for the raise. I'm getting 50 now."

Nikola went back to pumping him. "How come there are lords? What do they do?"

"They're the big mucky-mucks. They're the highest ranking guard officers, trade managers, lab managers, they do all the government stuff, advise the Most High Lord and stuff like that."

"How do they get to be lords?"

"Oh it's mostly hereditary, but sometimes somebody does something special and gets promoted. Not me though. Lab tech is probably all I'll ever be, although I'm studying to be a scientist."

"Where do you study?" _Is there a vampire college?_

"At home of course, where else? I get books from the library."

"Nobody told me about a library either, where is it?"

Kammick laughed at him. "You are so clueless. It's down the hall from the lab."

_Helen will be happy about that_. Kammick seemed like he was slightly drunk. Nikola hoped he wasn't as bad, but he might be. They were on their third, or was it fourth slivvos, and the taste wasn't nearly as bad as the first one. In fact, he was starting to like it.

"Who does the trading with the surface?" _And can I and my slave go too?_

"The market people of course. Someone always goes with the humans to make sure they're not trying to cheat us. There's . . . four markets I think, the humans go to two and just us at the other two."

Nikola's glass was empty. Before it could be refilled he stood up, wavering a little. "I have to get home. Somebody waiting."

"Hey, that's right, you were going to tell me about her."

"Next time, okay?"

Kammick said "Okay, I've had enough too, but you're buying tomorrow."

They left together, but soon parted as Kammick lived in another part of the residential warren. Nikola had to concentrate on what he was doing and where he was going. At a couple of corners he misjudged the turn and bumped into the wall. The floor kept listing to one side or the other, throwing him off balance. Stupid floor. He hoped Helen would be happy when he gave her the extra five.

/

Helen spent her day at the market, but bought very little. She found a fourth type of food fungus and spent one on a large piece. The low price told her it wasn't likely going to be any better than the first three. But the purchase opened the way for a conversation with the young female vendor.

"Do you grow all this yourself?" Helen asked, deliberately sounding impressed. She saw no reason to make herself difficult to understand with other slaves so she spoke normally.

"Yes, my family has a farm." The young woman pointed off in one direction.

"And the vampires don't bother you?"

"Of course not." She pointed at a square symbol burned into the center of the booth. "High Lord Maddon is our patron. No one would defy him."

Helen nodded agreement. "My name is Ahelena, I'm really new here. What's yours?"

"Joanna. I can tell." She laughed lightly.

So the slaves didn't follow vampire name form. But why should they?

"Do you grow these too?" Helen asked pointing at some onions and a few skinny carrots. She knew the answer, but she wanted to find out about trading with the surface.

"No, we trade for those at the Up Market."

"What is that?"

"We go up to the surface to trade. Not by ourselves, of course. Lord Maddon always sends someone with us, and I'm glad. It's so strange up there I'd be scared without protection. Have you ever been?"

Helen shook her head. "I'd like to see it some time. Can anyone go?"

"Anyone who has something to trade and a patron to guard them."

Is there anyone here at the market that could use a helper? My master works all day and I have extra time. I'm sure he would like it if I could earn some of my own food while he's at work."

Joanna thought for a moment. She waved her hand and said "Down there, maybe, the big woman, Marsha, she has three small children. She could use someone to watch them in the afternoon when the market is busy. Are you good with children?"

Helen nodded. "Thank you, I will talk to her." Babysitting wouldn't pay much, but it would give her an excuse to be in the market where she could listen to conversations.

Marsha did need help with her three children, all aged five and under. After some bargaining they agreed to four hours a day of watching the children in return for one item from the booth. Since her booth was heavily surface foods, Helen felt it was fair, and might give her the opportunity to go on a trip to the Up Market. Once there she was sure she could escape, but she had no idea how to get Nikola included.

Of course he was in no danger among the vampires. His ego might be getting bruised a bit, but he was fitting in. If she could escape he could likely find a way to get out on his own. But she was afraid of what he might decide to do to achieve that. Nikola hadn't really shown very good judgment about that sort of thing in the past.

She selected an apple as her first day's wage, and returned home with that and her fungal purchase as well. It was still too early for Nikola to come home, so she did the daily laundry, and cooked and ate some of her new fungus with a little of the leftover onion. She would save the apple for breakfast.

Helen looked forward to Nikola coming home and telling him one coin a day would be enough, she was earning some of her own food. The argument had been silly, they had over 400 years of experience between them. Surely they could work things out between them better than that. They were acting like a couple of young newlyweds who didn't know how to talk to each other yet.

That thought gave her pause. Their living situation was very much like a new couple starting out, but without the benefits. They had known each other for so many years, but she'd never shared a room with him in this type of circumstance. She hoped Nikola didn't get any ideas. Who was she kidding, Nikola always had those ideas, but what happened or didn't happen had always been up to her. As long as he didn't start believing she was really his slave.

Helen sat down cross-legged on her little mattress and meditated for a while. It passed the time, and would help her stay calm and focused when she talked to Nikola.

Finally, the door opened and Nikola came in, along with a very bad odor she didn't recognize. He had a reddish stain on his shirt. Helen at first thought there had been an accident at the lab and something had been spilled on him, but then she remembered where else he had been. His big lopsided smile and the way he listed to one side when he waved at her were strong evidence as well.

"Nikola, you are drunk" she said angrily.

"Hi Helen. I got this for you." He ambled over, staggering a little sideways, and held out a coin.

It was a five and she took it and said "I thought you spent this at the bar."

"Nope, see?" He dug the seven out of his pocket and showed her.

"So where did you get it?"

"At the lab." He reached out and hugged her. "You're so pretty."

"Nikola!" She pushed him off. "You smell dreadful. Sit down and take off that shirt." She waved her hand at a chair.

"Okay." He carefully sat down on the floor, but made no attempt to take off his shirt. He just sat there smiling and looked up at her foggily.

She looked down at him in disgust. "Just what I needed, I might have known you would drink yourself into a state and expect me to clean up after you. You need to take a shower."

"Okay." He grinned up at her amiably, but made no attempt to get up.

"Good lord. You are totally snockered." She went over and started undressing him. He tried to undress her back, but his eyes weren't focusing and his hands just fumbled around. She slapped them away and said "Stop that!" He looked disappointed, but stopped.

She got him stripped to his shorts, and managed to lever him to his feet long enough to shove him into the shower, braced against the wall. She turned on the cold water full blast. She wasn't about to scrub him, a lot of rinsing was going to have to do.

He slowly slid down the wall but gave her a goofy grin. "That's cold" he commented.

She tossed his smelly shirt in the sink and started washing it while he sat in the shower. After a minute she changed the shower to warm water. When she had the shirt washed and hung up she turned off the shower and got a towel.

To her surprise he reached out a hand and said "I can do it." He held on to the wall and got to his feet, and she handed him the towel. He'd finally lost the grin.

"Are those dry?" He pointed at his other pair of shorts on the clothesline.

"Drier than the ones you have on." She handed him the clean shorts and turned away to give him privacy, whether or not he cared about it. After a moment she heard his wet shorts splat into the sink, and he went by her wearing his drier shorts and the towel around his shoulders. He sat down heavily at the table.

He leaned his elbows on the table and held his head in his hands and said "The room won't stay level."

"And whose fault is that?" Helen washed out his wet shorts and dirty socks as well, wrung them out and hung them up to dry.

Helen sat down across from Nikola and said "We need to talk."

"Do we have to? Right now?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so. What have you been drinking?"

"Slivvo. It's only for vampires. I think I'll try the clatch next time."

"Nikola, can you concentrate enough to talk sensibly?"

He nodded and winced at the motion. She told him what she had found out in the market and explained about her new job and the possibility it could get her to the surface. He told her about blackmailing a scientist to get money, and everything Kammick had told him. He slurred his words somewhat, but she could understand him.

Afterwards, he said "I'm tired, can we go to bed?"

"Nikola, we have to decide what we're going to do. We have to get out of here, but we can't leave this society as it is, with vampire masters and human slaves."

He sat up straighter and pulled himself together, enunciating carefully. "I see two options. One, we get out and come back with a bigger force. But that's likely to start a war rather than change anything. Helen, I don't want to kill these vampires. They're not bad people, they just don't know any other way to live."

"What's the second option?"

"I take over and become King of the Vampires."

"I'm sure you would enjoy that, but I don't see how to accomplish it."

"The best way would be to use my scientific knowledge to gain leadership of the scientific community and get myself into the nobility. Then I just Machievelli the guards into supporting me and overthrow mister Most High Lord. I think I could do it in about six months, but I'd have to give the vampires a big technology upgrade to get that big a promotion that fast."

"Absolutely not. Vampires with advanced technology would be up on the surface trying to take over the world."

"Their technology isn't that far behind now and I'd be in charge. Do you really think it would be a problem?"

"Absolutely. What happens when one of them overthrows you, and the whole world is at risk?. No, there has to be another way."

"Well, the other way, it doesn't have a huge likelihood of success, but it wouldn't entail giving them technology. And I guess if it fails you could try the 'come back with a bigger force' option."

"Tell me."

"I think this society was originally based on a very stratified, military structure, not unlike primitive feudalism. The king was the mightiest warrior, and his nobles were those who distinguished themselves in battle. Now it's turned hereditary, but the 'best fighter is the boss' concept is still alive. If I could get the Most High Lord to fight me and I win, I would be in charge. Assuming the nobility didn't rise up and execute me and try to take over themselves."

"Good lord. Would you have any chance at all against him and could you control the nobility?"

"Maybe. I need to see how the guards are trained to fight. It would give me an idea what to expect. He would be bigger and faster, but I have magnetic abilities he doesn't. I haven't seen anyone use an electrical ability so that might be an advantage too, but that may also be cultural or they may not use it much because they don't need to. And as for the nobility, I would have to establish dominance right away. Once they start obeying me I'd be in charge, at least for a while."

"What about a mass slave revolt? If we could just get the slaves away from them, that would be the most important thing."

"And then what, blow up the vampires? That would be genocide. Just take away their food source and you'd have starving vampires rampaging around Romania and across Europe. And what about the thousands of illiterate confused humans you would have to explain away and take care of somehow. Maybe I could just fix their scientific methodology, would that be okay?"

Helen had no problem following his jump in topic. "Perhaps, if it didn't result in the vampires suddenly having advanced weaponry. Would that get you promoted quickly?"

"I don't know. They might promote me or they might fire the cleaning boy for telling them what to do" he said bitterly.

"I think we'd better sleep on it."

"Good idea. Are we both sleeping in the bed tonight, or are you still mad at me?"

"We're sleeping in the bed. I'm not terribly pleased about you coming home drunk and smelly, but you did get some useful information. I'm sorry about getting angry last night. We should have worked it out instead of fighting about money. I still don't like that crack about 'cattle' though."

"It's how the vampires here think about humans, I didn't make it up. I'm sorry about last night too. I really don't like it when you get angry with me. You're kind of scary." He offered her a tentative smile.

"Well that's the point, isn't it? How else can I bring you back into line?" Helen teased.

"We could probably think of something if we tried real hard." Nikola said suggestively.

Helen laughed and shook her head. "Bed, Nikola."

They got into bed, Helen expecting them to position themselves as they had the first night, but as soon as she was in Nikola wrapped his arms around her and started nuzzling her. She was flat on her back while he was half on top of her.

"Nikola! What are you doing?" she protested, trying to push him off.

"I don't know, I'm drunk and completely not responsible for my actions. You smell good. How do you taste?" Nikola started using his lips and tongue on her neck; he still had his fangs out, so he had to be careful.

Helen managed to get the bulk of his weight to slide off of her. "Down, boy. Drunk or not you know perfectly well what you're doing, so stop it. We need to sleep."

"I want to neck. I really, really like making out with you. Can't we kissy-face?"

"I'll make you a bargain. Nikola, if you can fix this place, free the slaves and keep the vampires from endangering anyone, when we get back to the Sanctuary I promise I will 'neck' with you. But not until then. Deal?"

Nikola drew back far enough to see her face. "Promise?"

"I promise." She doubted there was any way to turn this into a slave-free society in less than years, possibly decades, so she wasn't risking much. And when they got back to the Sanctuary whatever state this society was in, she might engage in some 'kissy-face' with him anyway. He was an attractive man even as a vampire, and she was discovering that living with him wasn't as hard as she had expected. Even drunk, he was something of a pussycat.

Nikola mumbled "I'll do whatever it takes. You'll see. And then I'm going to kiss you and you're going to kiss me and then . . ."

"That's quite enough. Go to sleep, Nikola."

"Okay. G'night, Helen." He still had an arm and a leg draped over her, but he was completely limp. She wiggled around a bit to get comfortable. She didn't mind sleeping entangled with him in his current state, he wasn't going to try anything in the middle of the night. He was deeply asleep already.

"Good night Nikola. I hope you wake up in time to go to work in the morning."


	7. Chapter 7 Advances

A/N: Sorry this chapter took so long, unfortunately the rest may be slow in coming out as well. It's all Nikola's fault; the character just went off and did what he wanted rather than what I had planned.

Also, this chapter contains vampire semi-sex. If you don't know what that is, you're not alone, I didn't either. Like I said, it's all Nikola's fault.

/

Nikola woke early and found that he didn't have a hangover. Score one for slivvo. But he had finished his last bag of animal plasma yesterday, so he went to work unsatisfied and grumpy.

He swung by the vampire market on the way. There was a lot of merchandise from the surface. It was expensive, but not as expensive as similar merchandise in the common market. He wasn't surprised vampires received favoritism over humans. At least he now knew where it was, even if he couldn't afford to buy anything.

When he got to Lab Two he found everyone was excited and fussing. Kammick told him that Andrina, the Low Lord who was the Lab Two manager, was coming by at midmorning for a review. Nikola was put to work cleaning empty stations to ensure no speck of dust marred their surfaces while Kammick straightened up the storeroom. The scientists were in a frenzy making sure everything was perfect at their own stations.

Andrina, a tall, elegant dark-haired female vampire, arrived with Boldrun and two other vampires Nikola didn't recognize. They sent from station to station while each scientist explained what he was working on in the most boastful manner possible. Nikola gritted his teeth and kept his mouth shut until at one station one of the least competent scientists with a totally useless experiment boasted how he was going to revolutionize the generation and use of electricity.

Nikola couldn't put up with someone misrepresenting themselves in his own field. He had suffered through that in the human world for decades, he couldn't stand by silently.

He muttered "That's totally ridiculous. In fact, most of what is going on in this lab is either wrong or useless."

He had forgotten he wasn't among humans. What he had said had been heard by every vampire in the room. As all other conversation ceased and everyone turned to stare at him, he realized he only had one chance now, and that was to impress Low Lord Andrina and show her he was right. Otherwise he would be punished and fired for insubordination.

He looked her in the eye and verbally ripped apart the electrical experiment. Then as everyone gaped he went from station to station, correcting the errors on the boards, explaining why this experiment was useless and that one was set up poorly. Some of the scientists tried to protest when he trashed their work, but he overrode them and kept talking. When he had finished he just stopped and looked at Low Lord Andrina.

Andrina turned to Boldrun and asked "Is he right?"

Boldrun was red with anger. "Of course not, our work is valuable. There may be a minor mathematical error or two, but surely you wouldn't take the word of this boy over that of your scientists!"

"Everything the 'boy' said was logical and precise. Even I had already seen some of the things he pointed out, although he picked up on more subtle errors that I missed, such as those in the design of the experiments themselves."

Low Lord Andrina walked over to Nikola. "What's your name, and where did you receive your training?"

Nikola didn't know enough to come up with a convincing lie, so he had to tell the truth.

"Teslat. I learned and practiced science on the surface." Nikola knew no one here would believe that without an explanation. "I'm a half-breed, I can pass for human."

"Show me."

Nikola de-vamped. Everyone was staring at him goggle-eyed. He re-vamped.

"If you were running this lab what would you do?"

"I would have scientists working together so they could bounce ideas off each other and catch each other's errors. I would make sure no one was punished for making an error thus encouraging risk-taking. I would set up a training program in the scientific method and experiment design, advanced mathematics, and anything else needed for anyone who wanted the training so people wouldn't be trying to learn on their own. That includes scientists, lab techs, and assistant lab techs."

Andrina nodded while around him the scientists exploded in protests.

"Shut up!" Low Lord Andrina commanded. To Nikola she asked "What rank are you?"

"Bottom Four."

Andrina started laughing. "You're the cleaning boy. This is hilarious." She became serious. "As a Low Lord I can promote anyone to within one rank of my own. As a top Seven, I promote you to a Six. Master Teslat, you are now the operational manager of Lab Two. What was your salary?"

"I was getting forty a decday."

"It's now four hundred a decday, and I'll arrange for quarters for you commensurate with your new rank. Boldrun, give Master Teslat half of his salary in advance. Now."

"He's already had fifteen" Boldrun grumbled.

"Then give him another 185, and be quick about it."

Boldrun hurried out.

"The rest of you, you heard what Master Teslat said about your work. Make the corrections he indicated."

Boldrun came back and handed Nikola a heavy velvet pouch of coins, scowling fiercely.

Andrina took Nikola aside. "Take the rest of the day off to get resettled. As the operational manager, you set your own hours, you can hire and fire staff, do your own experiments if you wish, and demote up to one rank and promote to within one full rank of your own. Come with me, I'll show you where my office is; there's a small room next to mine I'll have furnished as an office for you. And we'll get your new quarters settled."

Nikola gave her a sincere bow, and said "Thank you. I will do my very best to make Lab Two productive. Is it possible that I could tour Lab One?"

They started walking to Low Lord Andrina's office. "I can arrange tours of Labs One and Three and anything else you need."

Nikola nodded. "I would like to see what is being taught in the school and the guard training."

"Guard training? What has that to do with science?"

Nikola shrugged. "Perhaps nothing, but I would like to see it nevertheless."

"As you wish. You are most unusual Teslat, I am going to enjoy seeing what you can do with Lab Two. If you fail you realize you will be worse off than before, because I will have to make an example of you, punish you severely and fire you."

Nikola said confidently "I will not fail."

She showed him her office and the room he would have for his own, and gave him the key to it. They went to another room not far from the supply room that had maps and ledgers and key boards with mostly empty hooks but with some keys. The vampire in charge looked over what he had, and finally erased "Teslat" off of one small square on a map and wrote it in on a much larger one. He gave Nikola a set of keys and showed him where his new rooms would be on the map. Nikola had been staring at the maps ever since they entered, trying to memorize as much as he could.

When they left Andrina let him to a broad well-lit hall in the residential area, pulled out her key and unlocked the only door on that side of the hall. Inside, Nikola found himself in a foyer with a thick red rug on the floor and an ornate gold-framed mirror on the far wall with an equally ornate small table beneath it.

There were two doors on either side of the room, and one opened and a well-dressed human male entered and bowed.

Low Lord Andrina said "Nothing, Bertram. See that we are not disturbed." The human bowed again and left.

Nikola realized this must be the Low Lord's residence, but he had no idea why she had brought him here; until she looked at him. There was hunger and desire in her eyes.

"You realize that while I have promoted you, I could just as easily demote you to a bottom Three and have you punished physically and everything you own confiscated? You wouldn't want that, would you?"

_Oh, crap_ Nikola thought, but he started to nod, then shook his head.

"You really are quite attractive you know, and your intelligence is going to improve Lab Two immeasurably. That benefits both of us, you understand." Andrina moved toward Nikola, who backed up as unobtrusively as he could until he was up against the table.

She started unbuttoning his shirt. Nikola didn't know what he should do, so he didn't do anything. When she had his shirt off, she put her hands under his undershirt and pulled it up over his head and dropped it on the floor.

"You really are quite a lovely boy, Tez. Have you ever done a blood exchange?"

"Uh, no." _Tez?_

"You're a virgin, how precious." She was using her claws lightly on his chest and abdomen. The scratches healed as she made them, and Nikola felt an electrical tingling along with the small amount of pain she was causing. The combination was oddly exciting.

_I'm not even close to a virgin_. Nikola reached out and unbuttoned her blouse, and she shrugged out of it. She moved in close until their bodies were nearly touching, so he reached around her and unfastened her bra, and she let that drop to the floor too. She moved in until their bodies were touching, her hands on his back, using her claws and the electrical tingle. Nikola imitated her, not knowing what else to do.

Then she positioned her fingers down the center of his back. Suddenly she plunged eight claws into him, along and into his spinal column, giving him an electrical jolt. He gasped and arched his back in response, his head falling back. He thought it was an attack, but only for a second. Then an amazing sensation of combined pain and pleasure shot up his spine into his brain.

He couldn't move, his breath coming fast. She used her head to nudge his head back further and to one side. Andrina's mouth was on his throat, licking and nipping until she found his pulse. Then she extended her feeders into him. Nikola hardly felt it, just a sensation of cold as she injected him with anticoagulant from the sacs at the top of her feeders.

He had never suspected what vampire anticoagulant would do to another vampire. After the moment it took to reach his brain, the pleasure center in his brain lit up like one of his old electrical shows. He gasped and closed his eyes as his heartbeat timed itself to the electrical pulsation and blood draw and the feeling in his brain synched to it. But it gradually faded as her blood draw slowed and stopped. She withdrew her feeders and carefully licked a drop of blood from his neck and withdrew her claws from his back.

"Oh my god, that was wonderful" he managed to say.

Andrina murmured "Mmm, you taste good. Your blood is different, sweet and spicy. Your turn."

Nikola was more than willing to try to copy what she had done. He ran his hands over her back, scratching lightly and giving her some low amp voltage. He could feel her responding, moving a little under his hands like a cat being petted. He positioned his fingers down her spine, and she said "Move the top hand up one vertebra." He adjusted his position, but hesitated.

"Do it, do it" she urged.

He plunged his claws into her and hit her with a jolt of power that he matched as closely as he could to what she had done to him. She arched her body, and gasped "Deeper."

He complied, and her head went back, exposing her throat. Her arms were clenched around his torso, holding him close. He ran his lips over her throat until he was sure of the angle and depth of her blood vessel, then extended his feeders into her and pushed in anticoagulant.

She moaned softly as he began to draw from her. Then her blood hit him. He had thought the pleasure he had felt before was intense, but it was minor compared to this. This was more like a blindingly bright party on the Vegas strip in his head.

Nikola slowed his draw, pulsing it with the electrical current he was feeding into her spine, trying to make the sensation last as long as he could. He drew in more blood than she had taken from him, but couldn't quite make his draw last as long_. I need more practice at this. Lots and lots more practice._

When he was done, he licked off her neck and withdrew his claws as she had done, leaving them pressed up against each other and almost nose to nose.

"Did you like me?" she asked coyly.

Nikola was aware she was fishing for compliments. "Your blood is like nothing I've ever tasted before. It's got a depth, a savor to it" he said sincerely. _Absolutely true, I've never tasted the blood of another vampire before._

Andrina gave him a small kiss and released her hold on him. "I think I'll make you a top Six instead of just a Six. You did very well for your first time. But it's even better with coitus. Of course, Tez dear, we can't do that while you're a commoner and I'm a lord."

"We can't? Are you sure?" Nikola asked suggestively_. I really hate Tez, but considering what it's getting me . . ._

"Unfortunately, yes. But if you do well in the lab, who knows, old High Lord Kandrek might make you operational manager of all the labs and promote you to Low Lord."

_And you might get promoted to High Lord. _Nikola knew she was using him, but he didn't care. Let her, they could use each other, and in the meantime the side benefits were fantastic.

They both dressed, and Andrina unlocked the door. "Come back tomorrow after work?" she invited. Nikola nodded enthusiastically. She ruffled his hair and gave him a gentle kiss. "But work hard first. You have a lot to do."

Nikola said "Don't worry, in a month I'll have Lab Two producing like crazy." _Even if I have to do some of the experiments myself._

Andrina smiled and closed her door, leaving him standing in the hall with a big grin on his face. He started jauntily off on his next errand. At least he wasn't hungry any more. In fact, he felt wonderful.

Nikola went to the library and picked up books on vampire history and government, and then went to the vampire market and bought clothing for himself and Helen. He took the books and his purchases to his new quarters.

The new rooms had finished interior walls, carpeting, a large separate bathroom with a shower/bathtub combination and laundry area, two bedrooms, and a half-wall separating the kitchen from the living area. The larger bedroom, the living area, and the kitchen were furnished with actually nice furniture and appliances. But they would have to go back to supply for linens again, and find furniture for the second bedroom.

He regretted the second bedroom; perhaps he could convince Helen it should be an office or den or something, but he expected she was going to claim it for her own and that would be the end of them sharing a bed. He didn't want them to stop sleeping together, even if it was only sleeping and nothing more.

Nikola couldn't wait to show Helen. He considered moving their personal things to their new quarters himself, but in this society that was Helen's job. He still had over one hundred in the pouch. He slipped forty into his pocket for his own use, leaving over sixty. She wouldn't be angry he took forty would she? He wasn't sure, so he decided not to mention it along with what he and Andrina had been doing.

He went to find her in the common market. He finally spotted her behind a stall with two small children playing at her feet and a third even smaller child in her arms. She didn't see him at first, but when she did she looked upset rather than glad.

"Nikola, did you get fired?" Helen asked uncertainly. He shouldn't be here in the middle of the day, but he looked too happy for her to think there had been some disaster.

"No just the opposite my rosebud. I got promoted and have come to take you away from all this. Also to give you money so you can buy any yummies you want." He handed her the pouch.

Helen passed the child she was holding to her mother and took the pouch. "What happened, it looks like you robbed a bank."

"I am now Master Teslat, a top Six and Operational Manager of Lab Two. We have new quarters which I will show you, and you will need to move all our belongings from our old room. Then we need to pick up linens from the supply room again."

"Nikola . . . Master Teslat, what did you do?" Helen asked, alarmed.

He took her arm and started walking her out of the market. "I didn't give them any tech, I just showed the Lab Two top Seven manager the errors I told you about and she promoted me and put me in charge. You're not mad, are you?"

"I'm not sure. We'll discuss it later. Let's go do our errands first, and then we'll talk."

Helen was very pleased with the new quarters, and predictably wanted the second bedroom for her own. They moved their things from their old rooms and when she went to put them away in her new room, Helen found the clothing he had bought for her. Overall she was pleased with what he had gotten, he knew her tastes.

At the supply room the clerk was astounded when Nikola showed him his new keys, and gave them new sheets, plenty of fluffy towels, and three large warm blankets and three pillows. Helen paid the seven she owed and bought a large mirror. They also specified the furniture for the second bedroom and Nikola's office, and the vampire promised to have the best he could come up with delivered the same day.

Helen took her basket and her remaining thirty or so and went shopping for food, coming back with another onion, a bunch of carrots, a package of beans, four apples, two small wrapped packages of meat, and the tea bags she had coveted, and showed Nikola that she had money left over.

The furniture that was delivered was quite satisfactory, a twin bed, night stand, lamp, large armoire, and a rocking chair. Helen made up her bed and put away her clothes and went out into the living area. Nikola had finished setting up his own room and was seated reading a book. She pounced on the three unopened books he'd left on the table.

"You found the library. Excellent, and these should prove informative. Now tell me precisely what you did to get all this."

"I just told them what they were doing wrong; I didn't give them any answers." _At least not yet._ "And I can use any lab space I want, probably have any materials they can get . . ."

"Nikola. Do not lose focus. You are not here to play around with your scientific experimentation. We need to free the humans; that is our number one goal."

"I know, I know. That's what the books are for; I need to figure out my next move."

They both read for a little while. Then Nikola said "Helen? There's something I need to talk to you about." He felt a little guilty about what he was going to say next. Since the blood exchange he hadn't felt hungry at all; in fact he felt alert and energetic. But he definitely didn't want Helen to know about that, so he had to have some explanation about how he was managing without any more animal plasma.

Helen put down her book, wary. What was he up to now?

"I finished my last bag of animal plasma yesterday. We're not going to get out of here anytime soon, unless you want to try walking out past the guards. As a top Six I could probably bully our way past. But if we stay, I'm going to have to feed."

"We can't leave now, we will lose our opportunity to learn about and possibly instigate changes to this society. Besides, they're just cattle, aren't they?" _It's not like Nikola to be this straight forward about his feeding._

"C'mon, I already apologized for that."

"No, what I mean is, the humans are used to being fed on. No one will be injured or even frightened if you feed. We need to understand this society, including the vampire food supply. So I think you should. Just don't tell me about unless there's something I need to know, all right?" She gave him an odd, searching look.

Nikola dropped his eyes and nodded. Perfect. He had her permission even. She certainly didn't need to know about what he was doing with Andrina. Part of him wanted to tell her so she would know he was keeping his promise not to feed on humans, but a wiser part told him to shut up. She might be a little suspicious already at their sudden good fortune; she just didn't know what to be suspicious about.

They read for a while, then Helen asked "If you're a manager at the lab now, could you get back our walkie-talkie? I'd like to contact Julienne if I could and stop anyone from taking foolish risks to rescue us."

"I'll see. But if I can't I'll jury-rig something tomorrow. Oh, I almost forgot." Nikola went to his room and came back with three small packets. "I got you some spices. Thyme, sage, and parsley. Do you remember what the flowers mean?"

"Are we back to that?" Helen asked, amused. "Let's see, the meaning for thyme isn't much, just 'activity', and sage is 'domestic virtue'. We've been having quite a bit of that, haven't we? I don't remember parsley."

"Parsley is 'festivity'. We should celebrate my promotion."

"We should, but we don't have any wine."

"I wonder if there are any human bars around. They would have something we both could drink. I'm not sure human physiology could handle the vampire drinks, but at a human bar I could de-vamp and pass for human."

"You could de-vamp anyway. You've been all vampire for days now."

Nikola realized she was right, except for the short demonstration in the lab. He had adjusted to the vampire society to such an extent he was acting like he was pure vampire instead of half. He de-vamped.

"Better?"

"Not better, but I'm more used to you like this."

"Helen? Could we still sleep together? I know you have your own bedroom now, but I really liked sleeping in the same bed with you." _And after the blood exchange I really really feel like doing more than that, but if I try anything you'll figure out something's going on._

"I have a perfectly good bed, and the heat in here is quite adequate."

"I know" Nikola said softly. "But my bed is bigger, we would both fit, and you don't have to touch me if you don't want to."

"When we get back to the Sanctuary we won't be . . . "

"I know, but we're not at the Sanctuary, we're still in the middle of a bunch of vampires."

"Why should that make a difference? There's a lock on the door."

"I don't know, I guess it doesn't. But when we're together I know you're safe and I sleep better. And I like being close to you all night."

There was silence for a few minutes, then Helen said "I suppose it's sort of you and me against the world down here. And I like being close to you all night too. All right, as long as you behave." She had found herself reluctant to admit she liked sleeping with him, but why not? It was true, she just wasn't sure she was ready to face where it might lead. After everything she had been through with John, she just couldn't bear it if a relationship with Nikola turned out to be a disaster too. And there was a very strong potential for disaster with him.

Nikola felt like leaping up and shouting, but he was an adult not a child. He settled for grinning broadly. _Baby steps_ he told himself.

Helen changed into an actual nightgown in her room, and then joined him in his. He hadn't bothered to get any nightwear for himself, he was fine using his underwear. He let her get in first so she could choose which side she wanted, and then got in on the other side.

Nikola lay on his side facing her. Helen was on her back, and looked over at him. "Don't stare at me, Nikola, it's creepy." He nodded with a goofy grin on his face, composed himself and closed his eyes. She turned off the bedside lamp, rolled over and went to sleep.

Nikola had been getting more sleep than he needed, and he wasn't very tired. So he lay awake and formulated the problem of what to do next, and gave it to his subconscious mind to solve.

He wondered if the vampires here only used their electrical abilities for sexual stimulation. It would explain why he hadn't seen anyone use personally generated electricity for anything else. Or maybe they just couldn't generate enough to be useful under less stimulating circumstances. He would just have to watch the scientists in the lab more carefully, which he could do now that he didn't have to spend his time cleaning.

He thought about Andrina and the blood exchange. He couldn't do that with Helen, she was far too human. He had only experienced it once, but he wanted to do it a lot more and he wasn't sure he could give it up. It had been intensely pleasurable by itself, but his imagination was running wild on what it would be like with actual sex added.

Andrina wasn't in love with him and he wasn't in love with her. But that didn't mean he couldn't fall in love with a vampire woman and she with him. He could get Helen safely to the surface and just stay with the vampires. He could be very successful here in more ways than one.

If Helen ever took him seriously, learned to trust him and decided she loved him too, could he go the rest of his life without ever doing a blood exchange again? He could be with her and cheat on the side with a vampire . . . no, he couldn't. He cared for Helen too much to do that to her. It would have to be all or nothing. He didn't have to decide right now, but soon, perhaps.

He couldn't see Helen in the dark, but he could hear her slow, even breathing. He listened a long time until he fell asleep.


	8. Chapter 8 Evolutions

Nikola woke the next morning with his questions still unresolved. He turned on the light, waking Helen.

"Hey, I'm going to go in early today, see if I can get into Lab One. Do you want to go along or do you have plans?"

"No plans. Can we go to the library too? I'd like to see what else they have."

"Sure. I'm going to shower; join me?"

"I'll take my own shower, thank you."

When they had showered and dressed, Nikola vamped. Helen ate and checked herself in the mirror, and they went out. Nikola headed toward Andrina's office with Helen walking demurely a half step behind, but they ran into her in the hall.

"Good morning Andrina. Could I see Lab One today?" Nikola asked.

Low Lord Andrina looked affronted. "You've grown very big for your britches overnight. You will address me properly. Who do you think you are?"

_Oops, Andrina doesn't want our relationship to be public; in front of Helen, neither do I_. "I'm very sorry Low Lord Andrina, I did forget my manners. But could I see the lab?" They both completely ignored Helen, but as a slave she wasn't surprised to be treated like a piece of walking furniture.

"The Lab One manager doesn't mind you visiting, Tez. He doesn't think you're smart enough to understand what you'll see. He has a surprise in store, doesn't he? But let him think he's right. Kammick can show you where it is."

Nikola bowed slightly and said "Thank you very much, Low Lord."

With Helen following him, Nikola headed to Lab Two. When they were out of earshot, Helen asked "Tez? Really?"

"She's my boss, she can call me whatever she likes, and I'm trying to be good and put up with it until we can leave. So leave it alone, okay?"

"All right_." But it seems odd your boss would have a nickname for you already_.

There were only a few people in Lab Two this early, but Kammick was one of them. Nikola motioned him over.

"Kammick, good morning. I need to get something from Lab One, can you show me where it is?" Nikola remembered most of what he had seen of the maps in the key room, but the location of Lab One was eluding him.

"Yes, Master Teslat, but we need permission to go in." Kammick kept his eyes down respectfully.

"Don't worry about that, just lead on."

As they walked, Nikola asked him "Do you really want to be a scientist? You don't seem to have much talent for it."

Kammick looked stricken. "I don't?" he asked weakly, forgetting to address Nikola as 'Master'.

Nikola let it pass. He wanted Kammick as a friend more than as a follower. "You said yourself you're struggling, and you don't understand the math on the boards."

"Are you going to fire me Master?" Kammick asked fearfully.

"I'm going to offer you a better job. Do you know anything about running a bar?"

"Sure. My uncle worked at the bar for a while and I used to help sometimes. And I've spent a lot of time in the bar. Not that I'm a drunk or anything, Master. Do you want me to work in a bar? Would I still be a Four or would I get demoted?"

"I want you to help me set up one and then manage it. You won't get demoted."

"I'm only a Four, I'm not allowed to manage anything."

Helen broke in in English. "Nikola, what are you talking about? We're not here to open a bar." Kammick looked shocked that she spoke, although he didn't understand her words.

Nikola said "Sure we are" to her as they arrived at Lab One, while Kammick just looked back and forth in confusion.

As soon as they walked in they were challenged, but Nikola gave the challenger a haughty look and said "I am Master Teslat, the top Six Operational Manager of Lab Two, I have permission to view this lab. Also, I believe you have some of my property."

To Helen he said loudly so all the vampires could hear "Look around and fetch my things." Then he started walking around reading the boards and examining various experiments.

Helen moved around quickly and found the walkie-talkie in pieces spread out on one table, her cell phone on another, and the headlamps tossed into a corner. She appropriated some boxes and put the walkie-talkie pieces in a large box, the cell phone pieces in a small box. Then she put the small box into the large box, and tossed the headlamps in on top.

The two scientists who had been examining their equipment tried to protest, but had to admit they were only Sixes and Nikola outranked them. The top Sixes in the lab either didn't care or weren't in yet; no one else challenged their right to take the equipment.

Helen brought it all back to Nikola but stayed behind him while the Lab One scientists stood aside and acted affronted at the intrusion. Nikola took his time, but didn't comment on anything as Andrina had instructed him.

As the three of them left Nikola turned to Kammick and ordered "Get me some tools from Lab Two so I can reassemble these." To Helen he said "I might as well do something useful while you take a look through the library. I'll have to check out any books you may want."

He and Helen went to the library and he sat down and began looking through the walkie-talkie pieces while Helen looked through the stacks. Eventually Kammick found them with a pouch of tools; Nikola dismissed him to go back to Lab Two, and then tinkered until she had selected two more books, one of vampire legends and the other on genealogy. He checked them out and they left.

Helen had been restraining herself until they were alone. She had to stay a little behind him as they walked, but they could still converse. "Nikola, what was all that about a bar?"

"Helen, these poor benighted vampires have never even tasted wine. Wine is what will draw them in, but the bar will also offer rare, exotic blood from the surface- from cows, pigs, horses and probably sheep to start with."

Helen smiled. "You are going to start introducing an alternative to human blood."

"And make it expensive and very special to start with, then over time the price will come down, and at least some of the upper crust vampires will develop a taste for it and prefer it to human_._"_ I hope._

"The wealthy vampires will undoubtedly approve of it if they're the only ones that can afford it so when the price comes down, other vampires will likely follow their leaders. Very good, Nikola."

They returned to their quarters and worked together for a while. Helen checked the headlamps and found they were both in working order and started reassembling her cell phone, not that she would be able to use it underground.

Soon Nikola said "The walkie-talkie should work now. I've juiced it up as far as I can with what I have available. Do you want to try it or should I?"

Helen took it from him and tried it. At first she got only static, but then a voice she recognized answered her faintly. Will!

"Will, it's Helen, can you read me?" she said loudly.

"Helen, where are you? Are you okay?" His voice was faint, but clear.

"Nikola and I are in some caverns among a population of vampires. We are reasonably safe. Do not, repeat, do not come after us."

"We know about the vampires. Karl was bitten by one of the lizards and is in the hospital, but it looks like he's going to make it. Jerry went back in in wererat form, and went across the walls to follow you and avoid the lizards. He ran into some vampires but was fast enough to get out again."

"Where are you?"

"Henry and I are in the hills looking for another way in."

Nikola took the walkie-talkie. "There's a Romanian village called Saretu. That's probably the closest entrance."

There was a moment of silence. With the rustle of paper in the background Will said "Okay, we can be there in less than an hour."

Helen took the walkie-talkie back. "Will, I'll call you again in about an hour. If we can establish contact there, you can set up a command post. I'll fill you in on the situation here more fully then."

"Right. Will out."

Helen said to Nikola "I'll stay here and liaise with Will. What do you need him to do besides get you some wine?"

"Get lots of wine. And wine glasses. We'll need agreements with the local farmers for the blood supply, someone to do the blood draws, and a way to store and transport the product. That will do for a start, but eventually we'll need to buy land and animals for the vampires to own themselves. I'm not sure how many vampires there are down here, so we'll have to see what the demand is before we go too far."

"Nikola, are you sure you can do all this? Yes, you're a top Six, but does that allow you to commandeer a room, and furniture, and refrigeration units for a bar?"

"I have no idea. If I don't have the authority then I'll just have to get another promotion, won't I? Make sure that William gets decent stuff, I intend to drink some of it myself."

Nikola stood up. "I need to get to the lab, I shudder to think what kind of a mess it's in after yesterday."

Helen nodded. She was writing notes in her little notebook. "Will you be home early tonight?"

"No, I'll probably work late. Don't wait up." _If I'm lucky I'll be at Andrina's quite late_.

Nikola went to Lab Two and found it as disordered as he had expected. Most of the math errors on the boards had been corrected, but at least half the scientists were just sitting around looking either sad or angry. Some of them didn't know how to make the corrections to their experiments he had indicated, or refused to do so. Kammick was cleaning up glass where one of the scientists had just swept his entire experiment off of the table.

Nikola sighed and went to work. He hoped he still had the energy for Andrina when he finished. He went station by station, starting with the best so he could make sure the better experiments were back in progress before he tackled the problem areas.

Nikola made corrections where the experiments were salvageable, and gave the lab techs and Kammick the job of dismantling those that were not. He sat down with each of the scientists who were going to have to start over and discussed where their interests lay and what, specifically, they were trying to achieve.

There were twelve scientists that needed him to get them started again. He put them into two teams of three, one of four, and one of two. He assigned a team leader for each and told them what he expected them to accomplish. Then he left them alone.

They all started arguing. Nikola had expected it, they had never worked together on anything; everything had been a competition. He walked around from team to team, occasionally putting in a word but more often just listening. It was more tiring than just doing it himself, but Helen would be angry if he gave away the answers. Gradually the scientists seemed to be accepting that they didn't have a choice and figured out how to start working together.

Nikola left in mid-afternoon. Since the visit to Lab One had been arranged, he expected the other visits he had requested would be set up as well. He remembered most of the maps he had seen, so he didn't have any trouble finding Lab Three.

Nikola did much the same as he had in Lab One. He just walked in, announced who he was, and examined the work in progress. In Lab One the work had looked not too different from what he would have expected to see in a decent lab on the surface. Lab Three looked like high school science without a teacher. He was surprised it hadn't been accidentally blown up by now. He made no comment, and left when he had seen everything.

He went to the vampire school next. His discussion with the school administrator revealed that vampire children received a minimum of six years of schooling with an additional four available to anyone who wanted it. The curriculum stressed reading, writing, vampire history, arithmetic and physical education in the first six years, with advanced classes in those subjects for the additional four with literature, social studies, algebra, geometry, military science and general science as electives. Foreign languages were absent since even young vampires could pick up language basics from blood. There was very little taught about the surface beyond general geography and a little cosmology. The young vampires were supposed to learn job-related knowledge while they worked.

Nikola went on to the guard training arena. He wanted to avoid fighting any of these vampires, but wasn't sure if he could. If he needed to go up the ladder quickly, dueling might prove the only viable shortcut. From what he had read in the vampire histories, it was a time honored method of advancement.

The training sergeant, a bottom Five named Bronob, was pleased and flattered at his interest. The guard was often just taken for granted, but they had a vital role to play, according to him.

Not only did they keep the slaves in check, they were responsible for protecting the entire society from surface intruders. They maintained and fed the blue lizards in any surface access tunnels to keep the humans out, and made sure no slaves escaped past the guard to the surface so the murdering surface humans weren't alerted to the presence of the vampire society.

_Except for the surface humans we're currently trading with, William, Henry, Jerry, Julienne, Karl, and who knew how many others_ Nikola thought. But he just nodded gravely and said nothing.

Bronob let Nikola watch the fight training and provided commentary. While the guard carried weapons, their weapons training consisted mostly of how to attack and subdue humans or correct a misbehaving lizard. The bulk of the training centered on claws and fangs as weapons, as well as speed augmentation and application of superior strength.

Nikola was pleased with the explanations and demonstrations from Bronob. He knew he was outclassed in a fight with a pure vampire, they were stronger and could speed augment far more than he could. But he might have an edge if there were weapons involved. He tended to rely on fangs and claws now too, but there had been a time in his early days when he had handled knives quite a bit on his family farm. Enough to likely make him the equal of a guard with a knife, anyway.

By the time Nikola had seen all he wanted to see, it was late. Andrina would be expecting him, and he didn't want to keep her waiting. Until he proved himself as a top Six, he needed her good will to keep him at that rank.

Bertram opened the door when he knocked, bowed, and led him to a parlor. The furniture was old, heavy and large, but in good condition. Thick green carpet and wall hangings softened the look of the room. Nikola realized the predominant green color matched Andrina's eyes.

When she came in she was dressed in a long loose gold and green gown and her dark hair fell loosely around her shoulders.

"Tez, I was wondering if you were coming, I expected you earlier. How are things at the lab?" She went to a side board and began preparing drinks.

Nikola was irritated she hadn't asked him if he wanted a drink or what he would like, but answered as if he didn't care. "The decent experiments are up and running again, and I've set up some teams. There will be a period of adjustment."

Andrina handed him a small tumbler with a brilliant red liquid in it. "I doubt teams are a good idea, but I'll let you try it for a while."

He was confident the teams would produce and that he could convince her to keep them going long enough to prove it. Nikola looked at the liquid and back at her questioningly.

"Starotsrvena. I think you'll like it, but only the lords have access to it."

Nikola was surprised at the name, but realized he shouldn't be. The vampire language they were speaking was different from the ancient vampire language and incorporated a number of Latin and Slavic based words. Starotsrvena just meant 'old red' in both Serbian and Croatian, which told him nothing about what it was made of, but might indicate the source of at least some of the ingredients or possibly the recipe. He took a sip and found it somewhat like a good brandy.

"The lords have their own market?"

"We can trade directly with the surface, but this is actually made by Low Lord Urika. Good?" Andrina sat down on a large couch.

Nikola nodded and sat next to her; and she shifted over until they were touching. She put her glass to his lips and he drank a sip, and returned the gesture. She began undressing him.

He stopped her when she reached for the waistband of his pants. "I thought we couldn't . . . ?"

"We can do everything but." She continued undressing him, and Nikola let her. He didn't know what she intended to do, but instead of finding that exciting he found himself resenting her dominance. He expected to have more input into his own sexual activities. But he was trapped for now.

He hoped for a repeat of the blood exchange, but Andrina made no attempt to put her claws into him or use electricity on him. When they were both naked she proceeded with very human stroking and stimulation. Nikola returned the favor with mechanical expertise. While the activity was mildly physically enjoyable it was certainly nothing like the intense pleasure he had experienced last time. But Andrina was enjoying it and keeping her happy was paramount.

He tried positioning his claws on her back, but she stopped him. "No, we can't do that again so soon. It will cause overstimulation and pain, not pleasure."

"When?"

"Oh, a week or so. Have some more starotsrvena."

Nikola found himself drinking a lot of the 'old red'. Andrina encouraged him to use his mouth on her, but when he nibbled her neck, she stopped him again.

"If you're hungry, I can fetch in a slave. Or drink a bit if you wish, but don't play around like that."

He drank a little of her blood. Vampire blood was more filling than the animal plasma he was used to, and he wasn't really hungry, but he figured he should take it when it was offered. Andrina didn't drink from him. Nikola drank more starotsrvena and continued with the mutual stimulation.

By the time Andrina announced she was tired, Nikola was quite drunk. She dressed quickly, and petted and kissed him while he fumbled into his clothes. She saw him to the door, and whispered "Tomorrow" as he left.

Nikola smiled and whispered it back. _She's going to have me performing like a circus pony every night. The pony might actually enjoy it if he had a choice._

He staggered and stumbled his way home, keeping one hand on the wall most of the way to keep himself upright. When he got to his own door it took two tries to get the key in the lock and open the door.

There was a small lamp on in the living room, but the rest of the apartment was dark and silent.

"Helen?" he said quietly. No answer.

"HELEN?" he called loudly. There was sound from the second bedroom, and the light went on.

Helen came out of her room sleep rumpled and yawning, until she saw him. "Nikola. Again? Just because you can get drunk, doesn't mean you have to."

"Well, the starotsrvena was good, so I drank a lot of it."

Helen led him into his bedroom, sat him down on the bed and started undressing him. He could take his own shower in the morning. Now that she had her own room she didn't care how smelly he was all night.

"I was able to contact Will in Saretu. He's rented a house there we can use as a base." She realized she didn't recognize the drink Nikola had named. "I thought the bar only had slivvo and clatch."

"The lords have starotsrvena."

"And how did you get access to it?"

Helen had gotten him stripped down to his shorts when she noticed his shorts were on backwards.

Nikola was too drunk to lie. "Andrina gave it to me."

"Besides drinking, what else did you and Andrina do?" she asked angrily. Helen already had a pretty good idea, but she wanted to hear what he would say.

"She wouldn't do a blood exchange again, so we just did a lot of petting. You know, third base?" Helen felt he was telling the truth, but the fact that he had the nerve to tell her about his activities with another woman left her furious. One minute he was courting her with the Language of Flowers, the next he was jumping into bed with another woman- again, so he had been with her at least twice.

Helen rolled him into the bed none too gently and tossed the side of the blanket over him. He was snoring softly by the time she turned out his light and went back to her own bed.

She was angrier at herself than at him. She knew what he was like, just doing whatever he wanted regardless of anyone else. Why had she let herself start to believe his lies? Why hadn't she seen that he was just playing with her, it was all just a game to him? And she had been fooled to such an extent she had actually invited him to move in to the Sanctuary permanently. Youngsters couldn't have fooled her like that, only Nikola.

She blinked back tears. Had she wanted to believe him so much she had blinded herself to his true nature? She wasn't having any more fear reactions to his vampire form, but had he just proved she couldn't trust him in any form? But he hadn't made her any promises, was she just jealous?

Her head was spinning; she just didn't know how to react. Only Nikola could cause such confusion in her. Before she fell asleep, her last thought on the subject was _damn it, I was even beginning to believe I loved him._


	9. Chapter 9 Exploration

Helen woke before Nikola. She had showered, dressed, and eaten when she finally heard him stir. She was pouring her second cup of tea when he finally emerged from the bathroom.

He came over to the table and sat down heavily across from her. He looked a little haggard and sat slumped.

"Hangover?" Helen asked loudly, deliberately noisily rattling her cup in its saucer.

Nikola winced and gave her a grumpy look. "Headache. I never get headaches except from major head trauma."

"You never had starotsrvena before, either. Would you like a cup of tea?" She asked, expecting him to decline.

To her surprise he said "Please." She got a cup and saucer, clinked them down in front of him, and pushed the teapot toward him. He stirred himself enough to pour a cup, and just stared at it.

"We need to talk about last night" Helen said very seriously.

Nikola sighed and took a sip of tea. "I'm in trouble again, aren't I?"

"You deserve to be. It was very rude to flaunt your girlfriend in front of me especially when I'm the one taking care of you when you come in drunk. I expected better of you."

"She's not my girlfriend, she's my boss. I can't get her mad at me. She outranks me and could do some pretty bad things to me and to you too with no repercussions."

"So it's all her fault, you're just a victim; poor helpless Nikola. Really, do you expect me to believe you're not enjoying it?"

Nikola took another sip and studied his cup. "Eighty years ago, last night would have been acutely embarrassing for me. Now it was just boring and annoying."

"Oh of course it was, that's why you were there for hours, because you were so bored and annoyed. And the night before that, the what did you call it . . . blood exchange?"

Nikola leaned back in his chair and looked at her. "Helen, you know about the experiments with rats. Given the choice of having their pleasure centers in their brains stimulated or eating, they starve to death. The blood exchange involves direct and indirect stimulation of the brain. I can't possibly deny I liked it. There's no one on or below the earth that wouldn't like it."

"So it was not boring and annoying. It is exclusively a vampire thing?"

"Yes. Humans don't have the built-in equipment to do it like we do."

"So you can only have a repeat performance with a vampire, like Andrina. Apparently it's enjoyable enough for you to put up with the boring and annoying bits."

Nikola was getting very tired of hearing his words spit back at him repeatedly, but he didn't want to make her angrier, so he let it pass. "It could be, but . . ." Nikola struggled for the right words. "I don't have any connection to her. It's an amazing sensation, but I'm not a rat. I want more than just a mechanical stimulation."

Helen said coldly "I rather think you are a rat, jumping in bed with another woman at the same time you are courting me."

"I'm sorry you're taking it that way. I'm only trying to do what's best for both of us."

"You mean you're doing what you want to do, just like always. Protecting your rank is more important than anything else, including me."

He shook his head and finished his tea. He really needed to change the subject before this went any further. "My head feels better. It's still pretty early; I'm going to read for a while. I want to look at those two books you picked out at the library."

Helen cleaned up the breakfast dishes loudly. _Petty_ she thought, _but I don't have a gun to shoot him with, and he so richly deserves it._ She joined Nikola in the living room and picked up one of the vampire histories. They read in uncomfortable silence for an hour.

Nikola put his book down and stood up. "I'm going to check in at the lab, and then talk to Andrina about the room for the bar. Assuming no disasters, it will only take me a couple of hours. Do you want to do something together this afternoon?"

Helen couldn't pretend nothing had happened, but she still had a job to do. "Not really. I'm going to do laundry and then check in with Will. I have never in my life done this much housework. I keep telling myself this is good for me, keeps me humble, but somehow I'm just not convinced. This afternoon I was thinking of leaving the central population area and go further out to see what the conditions are like."

Nikola nodded. "That sounds like a good idea. I'll go with you, it will be safer with two of us and we can look for different drinks that I can sell in the bar. After lunch then."

"I don't need you to go with me. I am perfectly capable of going by myself."

"You don't have a gun and there's no way you can protect yourself from multiple vampires. You know I'm right."

Helen thought _I know you're insufferable, especially when you are right_. She nodded reluctantly.

Nikola left and went to the lab. He found Lab Two quieter than it had been yesterday. Most of the scientists had settled back into their work. One of his teams had gotten to the point of actually working on the problem he had set them. The team of four was using their board to chart roles and responsibilities within the team. The other two teams were still in heated discussion. He decided to let things develop naturally for another day.

He went to his office for the first time, and was surprised to find a piece of paper in his inbox. It was a protest from Lab One about the equipment he had reclaimed. He took it in to Andrina who told him it was nothing really, the lab manager just wanted documentation to show the equipment hadn't been lost or destroyed. She gave him a sample format for a reply.

He wrote it out neatly longhand, sorely missing access to a computer. That was one thing this place really needed to improve communications, although he was a little leery about giving the vampires access to the internet. He took his letter back to Andrina who approved it and they both signed it.

"Low Lord Andrina, I won't be able to come over tonight. I intend to take a self-guided tour of some of the outlying areas and I'll likely be back late."

Andrina frowned. "Couldn't you do that some other time Tez? I'll miss you. You wouldn't want me to be lonely would you?"

"I've never been anywhere except just right around here, and I need to have a better understanding of this society. You could manage without me for one night, couldn't you?"

"Well, all right, but just the one night. You'll come tomorrow for sure."

Nikola smiled and nodded, wondering if there was some way to escape tomorrow too. He realized he really understood the phrase 'sexual harassment' now. Too bad there was no equivalent vampire term.

"On another topic, I want to start a business. How do I do that?"

"A business?" Andrina asked, alarmed. "You have a job, a very I important job, and I expect you to devote your full attention to it. Besides, you're only a top Six, you would have to have a lord sponsor it."

"I was thinking of starting a bar. I have contacts on the surface so I can get some unique drinks. I think it would make a lot of money and once it was up and running I would have someone else manage it so it wouldn't take much of my time."

The light of greed showed in Andrina's eyes. "I suppose I could sponsor it, for 50% of the gross."

Nikola shook his head. "I just need a sponsor and a big room with furniture and refrigeration equipment. Any lord could supply that. I'm the only one with the surface contacts. Besides, you like me don't you, and want me to succeed?"

Andrina stood up and walked up very close to him. She ran one hand through his hair while the other squeezed and rubbed his shoulder.

"You are such a pretty boy, Tez. Twenty-five percent of the . . ."

"Net profit. That seems fair. Can we find a room today_?" Please stop petting me, I' m not your dog._ He put his hands on her waist and kissed her lightly so she couldn't protest her cut. She kissed him back with enthusiasm, but after a moment he pushed her away.

"Uh, Low Lord, this isn't very private, anyone could come in."

Andrina let him separate them, but she was still smiling a little as she led him off to find a room for the bar.

The room manager had a large room just off the main cavern that had been used for storage, but was now almost empty. He could supply tables and chairs but only odd groupings. The bar would have to be jury-rigged, but he had several refrigeration units of various sizes. Andrina told him what he had would be acceptable for now, and to have the room cleaned and the furniture moved in. She gave Nikola one of the keys to the room and kept one herself. They started walking back to her office.

"What shall we call our bar, Tez?"

"I don't know Low Lord, something descriptive like 'Wine and Blood'?" He had to use the English word for wine, there was no equivalent in vampire.

"I don't like that. What is 'wine', and I hope you don't plan on having a feeding station in the bar, I won't permit it. It has to be a high-class place if I am going to be associated with it."

"Wine is a surface drink; it's pleasant but won't make anyone drunk. The blood will be exotic non-human blood that I'll import from the surface too, Low Lord."

"Non-human? What does it taste like?"

"There are a lot of different flavors. I'm sure you'll like some of them."

"Interesting. Blood in different flavors would draw a crowd. Yes, I think we're going to make a lot of money. But I'll think of a name for our bar, your talents run in other directions."

Nikola agreed. He didn't care what the bar was called, and Andrina would advertise it to the other lords. He made a general excuse of having a lot to do, and left.

When he got back to his quarters, Helen was just finishing up on the walkie-talkie with Will. Will reported that he had a good supply of decent wine on its way to Saretu, but the animal blood supply would be small to start. The local farmers only trusted the local veterinarian to take blood from their animals, and the vet had his regular duties as well. Helen authorized Will to call in a Sanctuary vet to work on the blood draws full time, and increase payments to the farmers.

Will said "Wait, you're going to spend Sanctuary resources on this?"

"Yes, it's important" Helen said. "Eventually I hope vampires or their employees will take over, but for now we will have to support the effort. You might also look for a replacement for yourself. Both of us shouldn't be gone for a long period of time, and I may be tied up here for weeks."

"Weeks in vampire land? That doesn't sound like a good idea to me."

"Nikola needs someone here he can trust. Do you know of any other candidates?"

"For weeks? No one else I know would put up with him for that length of time."

"You're probably right" Helen agreed, looking straight at Nikola. Nikola ingored her pointed look and signaled for the walkie-talkie. She handed it to him, expecting a few cutting remarks, but Nikola stuck to business.

"William, pick up some wine racks as well, at least two large ones, also a few dozen wine glasses, a dozen corkscrews, and a couple of microwaves to reheat blood. And check out land prices and any farms for sale in the area."

Helen took back the walkie-talkie. "Did you get all that Will?"

"Got it, although I think you've lost your mind setting up a farm for vampires."

Helen ignored the remark. "How is Karl doing?"

"He should be released from the hospital tomorrow. Those lizards are poisonous, and the hospital doesn't have any kind of an antidote for it, so watch yourself around them. Karl was lucky, he got a nearly dry bite, otherwise he likely wouldn't have survived."

"Don't worry, we're not likely going to be anywhere near the lizards. We'll be out of touch for the rest of the day, so I'll talk to you tomorrow. Helen out."

Helen turned to Nikola. "I think we'll have better luck in our exploration if we're both human. The human slaves aren't going to speak honestly in front of a vampire."

"You want me to pretend to be a slave?" Nikola did not look happy at the prospect.

"I've been pretending to be a slave, so can you. You've immersed yourself in the vampire half of this society since we arrived, you should see the other side too."

He nodded reluctantly. "Okay, but not until we get out past the main cavern just in case we run into someone I know."

They both changed into their cheapest looking clothes. Helen picked up a large basket and put in an apple for herself and some small towels in case they actually found bottled drink they wanted to bring back. They were just two slaves going out to the outlying areas in search of something to buy for their master.

Nikola insisted on stopping at the vampire market before they left. Helen wasn't allowed in, so she had to wait in the corridor for a good twenty minutes, wondering what Nikola had to have that couldn't wait, pacing up and down and seething a bit.

When he came out, he had what appeared to be two black leather dog collars complete with tags. He handed one with a blue metal disk hanging from it to her, and kept the other with a blue metal triangle for himself.

"What in the world is this for? You are not expecting me to wear this are you" she asked dangerously.

"When we leave the immediate area of our master, we need official identification that shows we are privately owned. We both have to wear them." He showed her "Teslat" etched on to each of the disks.

"I see. So we're not vulnerable to the vampires as a publically owned slave could be."

"Right. It says 'hands off' to other vampires, and tells the guards that we're not runaways. Sorry about the style, it's standard, but at least I got you black leather."

"Thank you very much, just what I always wanted" she said sarcastically, but with a hint of humor.

Helen had picked out a route for them from the maps in the key room. They would go out about two hours of walking, make a long loop, and come back from a different direction. That would include suburbs of the central habitation area, farmland, and a small village. All together the walk would take about five hours, but with stops it would likely be quite late before they returned.

When they had left the main cavern behind and no one was nearby, Nikola devamped, and they both put on their collars.

"Okay, so who are we and what are we doing?" he asked, wanting to be sure they both had the same story.

"I'm Helen, you're Nikola, and we are owned by Master Teslat. If we need Master Teslat to appear, we'll find you a phone booth."

"I forgot to pack my cape. And we're looking for unusual drinks, human or vampire, for our master's new bar."

"He wouldn't be interested in human drinks, would he?"

Nikola shrugged. "Wine is a human drink, so maybe. If we find anything unusually good, we should bring some back for analysis."

"All right, but if you get drunk again, I'm leaving you where you fall."

Nikola just shrugged again. He definitely was not getting drunk again anytime soon. He knew he had stretched her patience as far as it would go, and maybe a bit further. At least she wasn't still very angry at him, although he had the feeling one more mistake on his part could seriously damage their relationship.

They walked to the far end of the main cavern where neither of them had been before. There was a large semi-enclosed area there with vampires going in and out to a series of enclosed booths. As they passed, they could see humans going in to the booths from the interior of the structure; they had found the feeding pens.

They both slowed down and peered through a slatted fence. Inside there were several enclosures, some of which had many humans, including entire families, others were empty or had only a few people in them. The adults from one pen were going into the booths, children and others carrying bedding and baskets waiting for them to come out. When the person came out of the booth, the entire group would walk down to a far enclosure.

"Must be a way of timing the blood draws" Helen commented.

"It would make sense. The vampires are dependent on the humans; they wouldn't want to hurt them by taking blood faster than the humans can replenish it."

They passed the pens and entered a broad tunnel with several run-down merchant stands carrying cheap goods near the entrance. There were few buyers, and even the vampires in this area were poorly dressed.

They walked for a few minutes and came out into another cavern, not very large but with other similar sized caverns visibly abutting it. They were surprised to see vampires there living in ramshackle little hovels, some only big enough to sleep in and all made out of cast off materials: rocks at the base of the walls, strips of hard fungus, dirty fabric, packaging material, even some cardboard. Apparently these vampires were of such low caste they didn't even rate an assigned room.

Nikola made a sound of disgust.

"Disappointed?" Helen asked.

Nikola answered in English as they traversed the cavern. Vampire hearing was too acute to let them overhear a discussion like this between slaves. "Disappointment is a totally inadequate word to describe this entire society. These vampires are pale shadows of the ancient ones. Where are the great minds, the great leaders? Everything is so pedestrian. They should be far advanced in science, living in architectural wonders, capable of ruling empires. Instead they just plod off to work every day or sit around expecting their government to take care of them. They might as well be _humans_."

"You're right. This society is far more like a human one than what I've read about the ancient vampires. And it's a good thing Nikola. They're much more likely to be able to integrate themselves into the surface world, and not go haring off to conquer everything."

"Vampire rule was benevolent" Nikola argued. It prevented war, encouraged learning and the arts . . ."

". . . and kept humans subservient, unable to determine their own destiny" Helen said sharply.

"I guess we're never going to agree, but it hardly matters does it. These vampires are certainly no threat to anyone." Nikola sounded sad.

"I'm sorry you're disappointed, but I, for one, am relieved."

They walked in silence out of the cavern and down another long tunnel. This one slanted down and twisted and turned, but the walking surface was even and it never narrowed to less than six feet wide. After another thirty minutes they came to a large, very high cavern filled with tall, homogenous fungal growths. A yellowish path led through the crop towering over their heads.

"Dorothy, we're not in Kansas anymore" Nikola quipped.

Helen nodded, stepped off the path through the growths, and ran her hand over the trunk of one. "These are sturdy enough to build with; very much like a tree but without the bark."

In the midst of the crop, they did find a small house resembling a log cabin made from the trunks of the fungi, as well as some areas with very small and medium sized versions of the same fungal growths. They decided to stop at the house.

The elderly woman who answered their knock eyed them suspiciously.

"Hello, I'm Helen and this is Nikola. Could you spare us something to drink? We can pay" Helen said warmly, trying to reassure the woman with a friendly tone. Nikola gave her his "innocent" look.

She hesitated, then said "Show me your money."

Helen did, the woman nodded and stepped aside, gesturing at a small table as they went in. They sat, and the woman poured out two mugs from a large jug which she handled easily. "One each" she said, and Helen paid.

They both sipped cautiously. The drink wasn't bad, something like a very bland soft cider. Helen thought it would have been much improved by being heated and adding spices.

"This is very good, what is it made from?" Helen asked as a conversation starter.

The woman laughed and sat down with a mug herself. "Look around. Pretty much everything is made from the mollock. This is made from the small tender heads of the young mollock. By the way, my name is Sofie. Where are you from?" She gestured toward their collars.

Helen said hesitantly "We're from the main cavern."

Sofie frowned at the term, but then brightened. "The Center? Where the common market is?"

Nikola answered. "Yes. Our master has sent us out to look for good things to drink that he could buy and serve in a bar he's starting there. Is there a tavern or public house around here?"

Sofie nodded. "Oh yes, in Cavilla. Go on down the road, take the second turning to the left. It's not a big, busy place like the Center, but there is a good tavern, the White Mouse. What is the news from the Center? Have there been any new laws passed lately? Is the king well, and how is his son?"

Helen replied as they finished their drinks. "No new laws lately, and the king and his family are fine. We need to be on our way, our master expects us back tonight."

Sofie seemed disappointed they didn't have any gossip to share, but she saw them to the door.

Helen and Nikola continued on down the road, passing other farms with slightly different fungal crops. At the second turn to the left, they found a sign both in Vampiric and Latin script indicating they should turn to reach Cavilla.

"I wonder how many humans speak a surface language?" Helen mused.

"Probably not many, just the families that go to the surface to trade, and even fewer would be able to read that sign. Humans don't receive any formal education that I know of, the schools are strictly for vampires" Nikola responded.

"That's something else that will have to change."

They walked down the tunnel to Cavilla and came out into a large cavern. They were surprised to see a large underground lake with the main street running close to the shore. There were a dozen shops and a large building with a signboard with a dancing mouse on it in peeling white paint. There were both humans and vampires in the town, some shopping, some standing and conversing. There were five vampires sitting in chairs outside the White Mouse, doing nothing except watching people go by.

As they approached, one vampire stood up and positioned himself between them and the door, and two others followed his lead and positioned themselves to either side. Helen and Nikola slowed and stopped in front of them.

"Well, look at the fancy slaves" the vampire on the left said. The center vampire reached out and flicked Helen's blue disk. Nikola moved slightly forward and partly in front of her.

"We don't want any trouble; we just want to go inside. We are privately owned by top Six Teslat and are here on his business." Nikola spoke respectfully, but met the center vampire's eyes.

The vampire took Nikola's triangle in his hand and looked at the name on it. Then he used it to pull Nikola in close to him and growled "We don't like slaves who are dressed better than we are." He slashed Nikola across the chest, shredding his shirt but only scratching him lightly.

Helen knew that Nikola was close to vamping. "Please, sir, allow us to pass. We will buy you and your friends drinks if you can advise us on what to purchase for our master."

The center vampire let go of Nikola and turned to her. "You have a lot of money?"

"Oh no, just what our master gave us to bring back samples of drinks. If you can advise us on what is good, we won't have to buy as much for him and can buy a drink for each of you."

Nikola stood tensed waiting for the answer. He wasn't sure admitting they had money was a good thing, and one more aggressive move by the vampires facing them and he would vamp and attack.

But the vampires seemed willing to take free drinks and let them pass. They parted, with the center vampire making an exaggerated gesture to Helen to proceed, and she and Nikola led the way into the tavern.

The inside was rustic but clean. Chairs and tables were apparently made out of mollow, and there were several types of bottles lined up behind the bar. The bartender was a large, tough-looking human woman.

The five of them sat down at a table and the vampires ordered clatch. The big woman asked them suspiciously "You got any money?"

Helen said "I'm paying" and showed her coin. The woman was satisfied and looked at Helen for her order.

"Is clatch all right for me to drink?" Helen asked.

"Honey, I don't carry anything that isn't alright for us to drink. And if those louts give you any trouble just let me know, they only get to drink here 'cause I let them." She turned to Nikola and saw his damaged shirt. "What happened to you?"

Nikola looked at the vampires and said "I had a slight accident. I'll try the clatch too."

The vampires grinned at him, and nodded. Apparently not "tattling" on them earned some measure of friendship from them. When the bartender brought the large glasses of the greenish liquid, they insisted on clinking glasses all around.

The clatch seemed to be about as strong as beer, but without the hops flavor. Instead, it was more like a mild grain beer with an odd grassy under taste. Neither Nikola nor Helen liked it much, but they drank it with their new vampire friends who introduced themselves as Cobbin, Nobbin, and Gobbin. The vampires explained they were cousins, and their parents had a weird sense of humor when it came to names.

Conferring in English, Nikola said "Clatch does seem to have a very mild alcohol type effect, but the taste is way worse than cow's blood. It's like eating the grass directly without running it through the cow first. Yech."

Helen replied "I'm not really noticing much of an effect, but I have to agree about the taste. I think Master Teslat is going to skip serving clatch in his bar."

Nikola nodded agreement. The other vampires gave them mild quizzical looks, but didn't seem to care very much about the slaves speaking to each other in gibberish.

After she paid for the clatch, Helen said "I'm sorry, but we can't afford to buy you more drinks and still complete our mission for our master." The three vampires complained, but left under the watchful eye of the bartender.

After they were gone, she came over to the table and said "You handled them right smart. What'll you have?"

Nikola spoke up. "We're not interested in slivvo. What else do you have?"

"Well, I've got amett, backun, and damureg."

Helen said "We've never had any of those, we'd like to try a small amount of each. How much are they?"

"Well, if you just want samples, I'll charge you one each for just a swallow of all three. Usually the amett and backun are one each, the damureg is two."

They tried the samples. All three had a kick for Helen, only the damureg did for Nikola. The amett had little flavor but wasn't bad, but the backun looked and tasted muddy, although sweet. The damureg was clearly superior, very smooth with a slight fruity flavor. They bought a full bottle of the damureg for eighteen to take with them. Nikola paid for it, Helen didn't have much money left.

They left the White Mouse and continued down the road out of Cavilla. They walked for nearly an hour through what was mostly farmland growing various fungi. Eventually they came to an intersection of two larger tunnels and found a cavern with a number of small but well-kept dwellings. Many of the dwellings had sign boards indicating a craft: a spinning wheel, a forge, a group of beads, carved toys and the like. There was an inn with a painted sign board of a bed and a plate of food, so they stopped there since it was dinnertime and Helen had eaten her apple hours before.

There were quite a few customers at tables in the main room; all were human. Helen was hungry, so she ordered food. There were only two choices, grilled meat with mushrooms, or a stew. She ordered the stew since it would give her a better idea of the variety of edibles available. Both of them ordered amett, since its mild flavor would go well with food.

The stew had small bites of meat and mushrooms of course, but was also liberally sprinkled with small chunks of onion and shredded carrot. It was good but spicy, and Helen enjoyed it. The spices made her drink more of the amett, though, and she ended up having three glasses to Nikola's one. Nikola bought a full bottle of amett too, since it was only five, and he made sure both bottles were cushioned by the towels in Helen's basket.

When Helen stood up to leave, she found herself swaying slightly. Surprised, she grabbed the back of her chair. "Good heavens, amett is stronger than it tastes."

Nikola just shrugged. To him, the amett was no different than wine, just not as tasty.

The inn server came over. "Are you all right? Amett can sneak up on you if you're not used to it."

Helen nodded. "Oh yes, I was just a bit surprised."

The server lingered. "You know the effect takes a while to grow? You had three glasses pretty fast, you better get home."

They left the inn and continued down the road, shortly turning left back toward the central cavern. Helen realized the server was right, she was feeling drunker as she walked, and she ended up holding on to Nikola's arm. He carried the basket and gave her a snarky smile, taking great satisfaction in not saying "Who's drunk now?" But the occasional glance she gave him clearly said "Shut up" so he just smiled back at her every time.

The Center was nearly deserted by the time they reached it; business had long been over for the day. Nikola vamped before they got there, and they both removed their collars, but they didn't see anyone they knew. He navigated across the cavern carefully. Helen was moving slower and slower, and had a death grip on his arm.

They reached the residential halls and he unlocked their door and gently deposited Helen in a chair in the living room while he put away the bottles of amett and damureg, and went and changed his shirt.

He came back into the living room and sat down across from her.

Helen eyes were half closed and she spoke slowly, enunciating carefully. "I'm not really very angry with you, you know. I thought our relashun . . . relationship was going somewhere, and it just hurt when I found out you didn't mean it. The flowers game and the ball fantasy were so nice . . . why couldn't you have meant it? I wanted . . . I wanted us . . ."

Her eyes closed and her head fell back to lean against the chair. Nikola waited a few moments to be sure she was deeply asleep, then carefully picked her up and took her to her room. He took off her shoes and trousers, and put her gently between the sheets.

He said softly "I did mean it, I do mean it, I'm just not very good at understanding what you want sometimes. I thought you would be pragmatic about Andrina, I didn't know it would hurt you. I'm sorry, Helen."

He kissed her gently on the forehead. "Good night, love."

A/N: Please review! Do you like this kind of detail on what they do each day, would you rather they "fix" the vampire society already, do you want more action?


	10. Chapter 10 Breaking up is hard to do

Nikola spent the night finishing the books from the library. He left the door to Helen's room open so he could monitor her breathing while he read; he didn't know what effects to expect from amett. When he finished the books, he napped in his chair for a couple of hours and felt fine in the morning.

He showered and changed. Helen was still asleep, so he left her a note saying he was going to the lab and would stop by later in the day to check on her. He took the two bottles they had purchased with him to the lab.

At Lab Two he straightened out a couple of scientists that were headed down the wrong path, gave a stern warning to one team that was still bickering instead of working, and did chemical analyses on the damureg and amett they had brought back. He was pleased he was able to completely determine their chemical contents with the primitive equipment in the lab and still have more than a half bottle of each left over.

But his mind wasn't entirely on his work. His relationship with Andrina was hurting Helen. He had to break it off with Andrina, but he was afraid his social skills weren't up to managing it without making her angry. "It's me not you" and "Let's be friends" were not going to go over very well with the dominant woman.

He could put it off for a while. Maybe he could pretend to be sick for a couple of days. No, vampires didn't really get sick. Well, he could avoid her until tonight anyway. He went home to check on Helen.

She was up at least, not dressed but sipping tea and slowly eating a baked apple at the table.

"Good morning" he said cheerily. Loudly he asked "Hangover?"

Her glare was weak and bleary-eyed. "Yes. I had no idea the amett was so strong."

He sat down across from her and gently placed the bottles on the table. "The damureg has the inverted nitrogen molecule, which is why I can get drunk on it. Both have an interesting combination of alcoholic compounds. They're complex enough that it will be cheaper to buy them rather than make them, if we decide to serve them in the bar. The amett will need dressing up though, what do you think would taste good in it?"

Helen's glare became stronger. "Nikola, this is the wrong time to talk to me about amett."

"Oh. Sorry."

They sat in silence for a few minutes while Helen picked at her apple.

Nikola started tapping nervously on the table with his long clawed fingers. "I'm going to see Andrina tonight. I'm . . . I'm going to call it off with her. I don't know what the consequences will be."

"Are you sure you want to do this?" She reached over and stopped his tapping by holding his hand.

He met her eyes. "Yeah . . . yes. Unless you think I should keep seeing her for our safety."

"I don't want you to see her, Nikola. If you were in love with her, it would be different."

Nikola just shook his head.

"Then we'll manage, no matter how she reacts."

Nikola nodded, and changed the subject. "Can we check on how Will is doing on the bar supplies?"

"The walkie-talkie is in my room, help yourself."

He fetched it and called. But instead of Will, someone else answered.

"Hey, this is Jerry, what's up?"

Helen took the walkie-talkie. "Is Will there?"

"Nope, he and Henry are on their way to Bucharest to catch a flight home. Will left me all the instructions though. I've got a house full of stuff waiting for pick up."

"How's Karl?"

"He's on his way home too. Julienne's around, she should be here with another batch of blood soon."

Nikola took the walkie-talkie. "I'll be by this afternoon to pick up what you have."

"Hope you have a truck, there's ten cases of wine, four cases of glasses, a couple of microwaves, one humungous wine rack and a couple of small ones, and we have a couple of refrigerators full of little blood baggies. We've got cold packs and Styrofoam containers to carry them in, corkscrews, little paper coasters and I don't know what all."

"No truck, probably just muscle. I'll see you later. Nikola out."

"How far is it to Saretu?" Helen asked.

"Four or five miles, I think. The hard part is there's going to be a lizard cave to get past, since every route to the surface has one to discourage human explorers. I'll just have to grab a couple of guards; they feed them so they should be able to control them."

"You're not going to try to do this yourself, are you?"

Nikola grinned. "Heck no, I'm a top Six, I'll get Kammick and the lab techs to help, and maybe some of the public slaves; I'll have to find out what it costs." Nikola stopped smiling. "At least I'm a top Six until tonight. After that . . . ". He shrugged.

Helen tried to reassure him. "It will be fine, Nikola. We'll manage."

"I'd better get to work. I don't know when I'll be back, I could be late."

"Do what you have to do. I'm going to finish reading the library books. And there are always dishes and laundry to be done." She smiled ruefully.

"I'm so glad you're the human. I'm terrible at laundry." They both smiled. Nikola rummaged around and found their headlamps to take along, since the tunnels near the surface would be deliberately dark and uninviting. He left for Lab Two.

He picked up Kammick, Eminee, and three other techs at the lab and explained what he needed done. He found out the humans in the feeding pens could be used for free, since they had no vampire sponsors and did no other work besides donating blood.

At the pens, the vampire pen manager offered him any of the slaves from the enclosure that was in the feeding rotation for tomorrow. They would all be well recovered from their previous donation and had nothing else to do.

Nikola went in and selected eleven of the strongest looking. None of them seemed upset to be picked; they were used to being used by vampires for odd jobs. Most of them actually seemed pleased when he explained they were going to the surface to pick up and bring back some goods. It was probably the most interesting and exciting thing they had had the opportunity to do in a long time.

Nikola knew the route from the map in the key room, but stopped at the guard training compound and asked Bronob about the difficulty of the route. Bronob was glad to help; Nikola was one of very few vampires who had shown any interest in guard training.

Bronob said "It's not bad, one of the trading markets is held there. I'll send a couple of my trainees with you to show you how to avoid the lizard pit."

Nikola and the two guards walked at the head of the group. He hoped eleven humans and five vampires- well six including himself- would be enough to lug everything back in one trip. He could always draft the guards as well, he outranked them.

The tunnels were wide and well maintained. They walked at a moderate pace for an hour and a half. The humans were lagging a bit by then; they obviously weren't used to regular exercise. Then the phosphorescent tunnel lighting dimmed, and the tunnel narrowed ahead.

The guards stopped and took out their flashlights. Nikola put on his headlamp and gave the second one to Kammick, instructing him to stay with the humans. The guards turned aside and faced the wall. They searched for a moment, then found what they were looking for, a small oval mark at their head height. One used his knife to prick his thumb and smeared the resulting drop of blood into the oval.

There was a pause, then a harsh grating sound and a large portion of the wall sank inward and slid aside. The guards led the way through, and Nikola took a good look at the mechanism on the interior side as his work gang filed through.

The passage sloped downward and was wide and well maintained, but dark. It curved to the left, and after what Nikola calculated to be 130 degrees, ended in a blank wall with an identical mechanism attached to it. One guard stepped to the side and pulled a lever, and the wall moved in toward them and moved aside. They trooped through and a guard closed the wall behind them with a drop of blood.

The tunnel was completely dark and appeared natural, but Nikola realized the floor had been smoothed somewhat since walking wasn't difficult. There were a number of side tunnels and intersections, but the guards led them confidently through the maze. Nikola looked for markers and at first couldn't find any, but eventually he saw a small pair of shallow parallel chisel cuts in the floor near the wall. Once he spotted them, he found them easily at every junction.

They exited a cave on a path that led down a long grassy hill to a small village. The path was wide and well worn. The humans started chattering to each other about the grass, the sky, the cottages, and everything else in sight. Apparently most if not all of them had never been on the surface before, or it had been a very long time. Even Kammick and the lab techs were swiveling their heads around trying to take it all in, although they pretended nonchalance.

By the time they got to the road that passed through the village, many of the residents had come out of their houses to stare at the group. Nikola spotted Jerry and Julienne outside one house, waving to him. He said "Buna ziua" politely to villagers as they passed. Several said it back, some just nodded, a few retreated back into their homes and locked their doors.

Jerry eyed the gang following Nikola a little nervously, but greeted him with a nod and a tentative handshake. "How are you doing? I can see why you don't need a truck, you've got a small army."

"Yeah, the stuff inside?" Nikola realized Jerry had been reluctant to shake hands because Nikola hadn't devamped, and his claws were quite long and sharp. Well, no damage done and Jerry and Julienne might as well get used to it.

Julienne opened the door and led the way. Piles of boxes and crates filled the small living room. Two old refrigerators ran noisily in a corner, with empty Styrofoam containers stacked nearby.

She and Jerry packed the blood in the containers while Nikola directed the loading of the humans and vampires. Eventually everything was in someone's hands and Nikola was just left with a small box of corkscrews to carry himself.

Nikola turned to Julienne. "Keep the blood supply coming. When is the Sanctuary vet going to arrive?"

"He should be coming in tonight on a red-eye. We've found some small pieces of property for sale in the area, but nothing big. Would it be alright to have several specialized farms rather than one big one?"

Nikola looked at her blankly. "I don't care, ask the vet for his opinion when he gets here. Don't start buying animals yet until I see what's popular."

Jerry asked "How's Helen holding up? It can't be easy pretending to be a slave."

"She's fine. Her biggest worry at the moment is getting 'dishpan hands' from the housework." _And beyond that is none of your business._

Nikola shook hands with both of them carefully and followed his group up the hill. The trip back was far slower than the trip out. The humans had to stop and rest every hour, as did the guards who were carrying the large, old, very heavy wine rack.

Nikola led the way following the parallel marks and used his blood to open and close the side passage around the lizard's cave. He had deliberately made sure all the vampires were heavily loaded so it would be natural for him to be the one to open the passage; he wanted to be sure his blood would work in case he and Helen needed to get out quickly by themselves.

By the time they reached the main cavern the common market was packing up and workers were on their way home. Nikola led them to the room that would be the bar, unlocked the door, and was pleased to see three refrigerators plugged in and running and a jumble of tables and chairs, as well as some boards and supports to fashion a make shift bar.

He had everyone bring in their loads and stack them in a pile while he unloaded the blood into the refrigerators. He found a bathroom at the far end of the room, but he realized he was going to need additional plumbing. He would need a sink for washing glasses, and probably at least one more bathroom. He would have to talk to Andrina about it. The thought depressed him; he had managed to forget about her and the upcoming confrontation all day.

He dismissed the lab techs, and he and Kammick walked the eleven humans back to the pens. He had signed them out and had to return them personally.

On the way Kammick asked "Master Teslat? I'm pretty hungry after that, I'm going to stay and feed. Do you want to . . . ?"

Nikola thought about it. He was only a little hungry, but it might be better to be full when he talked to Andrina, and he ought to experience the pens. And Helen had already said it was okay. "Good idea, I think I will too."

The pen manager checked over the humans carefully for damage before accepting them back. Once that was done, Nikola followed Kammick to the booths. Kammick went in one and Nikola went in the next.

He closed the door behind him and found himself in a cubicle with two chairs, one slightly lower than the other. The door in the opposite wall was open, and in less than a minute a female human came in and closed that door behind her.

"Clothed or unclothed?" she asked.

He looked her over. She was middle-aged, but not bad looking, a little thin. She seemed clean and stood passively waiting for his reply. He hadn't realized there might be a sexual component to feeding from humans, but her offer implied she was offering more than dinner.

"Um, I've never been here before, can you explain the difference?"

She looked at him like he was an idiot. "You can feed on me with my clothes on or with me naked. If you want sexual interaction- and that includes hands, sir- you have to pay. Any of the pen workers can tell you the rate schedule for whatever you want. You pay them, they give you a chit, you give it to me, and then you get what you paid for."

"Where does the money go?"

"It pays for our food and clothes, of course, and any extra goes to the treasury" she replied impatiently.

Nikola considered. He had money, Helen would never know, would she? But that was how he got himself in trouble over and over, thinking no one would know. He was better off pretending Helen was following him around and would know everything he did. Besides, he only came here for food, he didn't need anything more.

"Clothed is fine."

She sat down on the lower seat, pulled the collar of her shirt away from her neck, and tilted her head. Nikola took the higher seat. He used his lips on her neck to find her pulse, then extended his feeders into the stream of her blood.

He fed slowly, not wanting to cause her discomfort. He brought a little of the blood into his mouth for the flavor. It was good, but no better than some of the animal blood he had had. When he was sated, he withdrew his feeders and licked the last drops from her neck to ensure clotting.

As soon as he released her she stood up, adjusted her shirt, and left without looking at him. _Just another day at the office_ he mused. He went out his door and saw that the booth next to his was empty and Kammick was nowhere in sight. He considered finding out about the rates his dinner had mentioned, but decided he was better off not knowing. If he let slip that he knew the rates in front of Helen, she would want to know how and why he knew, and telling her it was just intellectual curiosity wasn't likely to convince her he was innocent.

He left the area of the pens and walked back toward Andrina's residence. She was expecting him, and she might already be angry at how late he was. What was he going to say to her?

His mind was still blank on the subject when he reached her door. He knocked, and in a few seconds Bertram opened the door, bowed slightly, and motioned him in. Bertram led him to the parlor, where Andrina was seated on the couch. She was dressed in a short dress in a blue and green swirled pattern that left most of her legs bare, with green sandals. Two glasses of starotsrvena were poured and sitting on the table.

She dismissed Bertram with a wave, rose and came over to Nikola, who took a step back.

"Wait, we have to talk."

"We can talk later" she purred.

"It's business; let's get it out of the way first." _Before you get angry and won't listen to me._

Exasperated at the delay, Andrina just asked "What?"

"The room for the bar is going to need shelving and additional plumbing. We'll need a sink to wash glasses, and there's only one bathroom. That's not enough, is it?"

"Of course not. Are you going to let humans into the bar?"

"Yes, the more patrons the better."

"Then they'll need separate bathrooms. A partition to keep them off to themselves would be proper too. I'll see about it tomorrow. Anything else?"

"No, the good news is I have the first shipment from the surface. It's just stacked in the room right now. I'll start setting up tomorrow."

"Fine. Are we all done with business now?" She closed the gap between them and draped her arms over his shoulders. One hand caressed the back of his neck while the other ran through his hair.

Nikola shook his head and pushed her arms away. "I can't do this. It's not right."

"What do you mean it's not right. It seems very right to me, and you've already shown how much you like me. I know you enjoyed the blood exchange a great deal, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but that was only because you took me by surprise. Andrina, I'm sorry, but there's someone else."

Andrina's eyes opened wide in surprise. "There can't be, who else do you even know? Is it that little lab tech, Eminee?"

"No, and it doesn't matter who it is. I respect you as my boss and I want to keep working for you, but I can't be your boyfriend."

Andrina was very angry, her eyes narrowed, glaring at him with her lips pulled back slightly off of her fangs. "You used me. You little slimy half-breed, all you wanted was a promotion."

Nikola ignored her insults. "Well you're using me too, to straighten out your lab and get the bar going. Let's just call it even, okay?"

"Oh no, it's far from 'okay' and we're not even until I say we are. Don't tell me it's a human; you prefer a human to _me_?"

Nikola winced, she was getting too close. Andrina seized on his reaction. "It is a human! You actually want to be with one of those _animals_?"

"They're not animals and I can't help who I'm attracted to, it's an emotional decision not a rational one."

Andrina gave him a haughty look. "You're right, it's not rational. I can't believe I actually let you touch me. You will pay for this, Teslat; that is a promise. Now get out!"

Nikola left hastily. _Well she hasn't actually done anything to me, yet. Maybe she'll be reasonable when she calms down._ But he couldn't make himself believe it.

It was only the middle of the evening when he got home, and Helen was sitting cross-legged on the floor meditating. She opened her eyes when he came in.

"Nikola, you're home early, and you're not even drunk. What happened?"

Nikola sat down in a chair in the living room. "I told Andrina I'm not going to see her anymore."

Helen rose and sat down on the couch across from him. "Good. How did she take it? Was she upset?"

Nikola grimaced. "Upset doesn't nearly cover it."

"But she didn't demote you or anything like that?"

Nikola caught her gaze. "Not yet, but it's not over. By the look on her face when I left, I'd say it's far from over. I don't what she's going to do." He sounded worried.

"Well then there's no point in worrying about it, there's nothing we can do now. Did you get the bar stocks?"

"Yes, but there's still a lot of work to be done before we can open. If Andrina pulls her support I don't know if we'll ever open, we still need plumbing work and shelving at least."

"Is everything all right on the surface?"

"As far as I can tell. Jerry and Julienne are handling that end now, Will and Henry went home. The vet should be arriving tonight, and there are some properties for sale that might do for vampire farms. That's all I can think of."

His statement alarmed Helen a little. It wasn't like Nikola to repeat information she already knew or admit he might have forgotten something; he must be more rattled than he looked. She pretended she hadn't noticed.

"I finished the books from the library today, have you?"

"Yes, I finished them last night. I'll take them back tomorrow and see what else they have."

"Please do pick up some more; it can be quite boring here. Perhaps I should get a job."

"No!" The first thing that had leapt to Nikola's mind was the woman from the pens and her job. He realized he had overreacted. "No, at least not working for a vampire. What kind of job were you thinking of? Not babysitting in the common market again?"

"No, something more substantial. I haven't really thought that far ahead, although the greatest need might be setting up an underground school for the human children."

"I'll find out tomorrow if there are any laws against educating slave;, that is if anyone is still speaking to me." Nikola sounded depressed and a bit sulky. He had done what she wanted and he had a bad feeling the consequences were going to be personally unpleasant.

"Come on, Nikola it will be all right. Andrina may control Lab Two but she doesn't control the world. There are always opportunities for a sharp fellow like you. Buck up."

"You're probably right, maybe I'm overreacting. I'm going to have a little damureg before bed. Do you want some, or some amett?"

"No amett for a while I think. But I'll have a little damureg with you."

Nikola poured a couple of fingers in two glasses and gave one to Helen.

"Cheers" she toasted.

"Here's mud in your eye" Nikola responded. Helen laughed. Nikola's Americanisms still amused her.

She patted the couch next to her. "Come sit over here."

Nikola was surprised, but complied readily. Helen held up her glass and he clinked it with his. They finished their drinks. She snuggled up to him and he carefully put his arm around her, not sure if that was what she wanted. She leaned against him more and put her head on his shoulder.

Nikola took a deep breath, savoring the scent of her hair. No matter what she washed it in, there was always something unique in the scent that he loved.

"I must have been a good boy today."

"You were a very good boy today. I appreciate you giving up your vampire girlfriend and all that she can offer you."

"I didn't give up anything. I just needed someone to point out that I was risking so much for so little. Sometimes I lose my perspective."

"I have noticed that, over the years."

Nikola chuckled. "I really miss you when we're apart. Nobody else knows when I just need a little course correction."

"Well that's me, your personal GPS."

"Want to join me in bed tonight?"

"I'd like that. As long as you continue to be a good boy."

"One of these nights you're going to ask me to be a bad boy, and like Mae West, when I'm bad I'm even better." He started nuzzling her.

Helen sat up, smiling. "Nikola, you're still incorrigible."

"Well, I keep offering to let you corrige me, but you never take me up on it."

She gave him a look that raised the hair on the back of his neck. "Keep offering."

When they went to bed, Nikola crawled in very close to her, but not quite touching. She seemed to go to sleep very fast, and rolled over toward him apparently unknowingly. He adjusted his position with his eyes closed until they were cuddled close. They both must have been having very nice dreams, because Helen sighed contentedly and Nikola was "sleeping" with a big smile on his face.


	11. Chapter 11 Trial and Error

The pounding on the door started in the middle of the night. Helen and Nikola disentwined themselves and Helen turned on the light while Nikola headed toward the door. There was some shouting out in the hall too, but he couldn't make out the words. Was it some sort of emergency?

He opened the door to five guards, who shoved him back and entered into the apartment.

"What are you doing? What do you want?" Nikola asked as they spread out through the apartment; two of the guards headed for the bedrooms.

Helen blocked the doorway into Nikola's room. "Stop. Explain yourselves" she ordered.

The vampire in front of her hesitated, but then realized he was being confronted by a slave wearing a nightgown. He backhanded her across the face, knocking her into the wall.

Nikola responded immediately, leaping on the guard and knocking him to the floor, landing on top of him. Nikola grabbed the guard's head and snapped his neck.

The other guards pulled heavy truncheons from their belts and attacked Nikola. He held them off for a few seconds, grabbing the truncheon out of the downed guard's belt and waving it in front of himself. Then three guards leapt at him at the same time; he swung at the head of one, but missed and hit the guard's shoulder, knocking that guard back. The other two both landed solid blows, one to his ribs and the other to his neck.

Nikola staggered back, but the last guard had joined in by then too, and Nikola went down beneath their blows.

Helen was back on her feet, relatively uninjured except for a bruise forming on her cheek. But the vampire fight happened so fast she didn't have the chance to jump in before Nikola was down. Without a weapon she knew she couldn't do anything alone against four vampires. She watched in horror as they continued to beat Nikola even after he stopped moving.

When they stepped back, Helen could see a lot of blood around Nikola's head and large red stains spreading across his t-shirt and shorts. The guards roughly rolled him over on his stomach, grabbed his arms and pinioned his wrists behind his back with odd, heavy handcuffs linked with a solid bar.

The guard with the broken neck sat up, moving his head around carefully, apparently trying to get everything in his neck to realign properly. Helen realized she was essentially alone with five unfriendly vampires; her best chance was to be an insignificant little slave.

"M-m-masters?" she said softly, accentuating fear that she normally would have suppressed. She kept her body tense and pulled in on itself and her eyes down. "What did he do?"

"He's being arrested. You will come along too" one of the vampires said, but they were paying very little attention to her. One of them had gone into the bedrooms and gathered an armload of clothes, a second had the large mirror, and a third was holding a small dragon figurine that she had never seen before. The one with the figurine picked up the library books as well.

One of the guards stood between Nikola's legs facing away from him, crouched down, grabbed his ankles and started dragging him face down behind him. Helen started to protest but stopped herself. They weren't going to listen to her, and any additional abrasions Nikola would get by the rough treatment were minor compared to the injuries he already had. If she protested, they might react in the opposite way she wanted, and injure him more or injure her. She clamped her mouth firmly shut.

The vampires trooped out, the last one grasping her by the upper arm and half dragging her along. She knew she was going to have another set of bruises there, and she tried to keep up with her captor to avoid additional injury.

The worst part was that Nikola's body was being dragged directly in front of her, and his blood was being smeared down the hallway where she couldn't avoid walking on it with her bare feet. She watched his t-shirt ruck up to his armpits and his head bounce over every unevenness in the floor. Gradually the blood trail lessened and stopped.

The hallways were deserted and they traveled to an area she was unfamiliar with. They turned in to a large, brightly lit room and stopped in front of a large desk with a lot of papers on it. The guard at the desk conferred with the guard holding the books and figurine. Helen could only catch a few words: ". . . theft of property . . . accusation . . . lord . . . tribunal in the morning . . . "

The guards dumped all the property they were carrying on a side table, and four of them took Nikola and Helen the length of the room through a maze of desks and chairs, with a few guards working at the desks scattered throughout. They went through another door, down a short hallway to a door with a female guard outside. She unlocked the door and they all went through.

Just inside the door was a small table with a lamp that the first guard turned on. It was the only source of illumination for a short dead end hallway. On the left side was a blank wall, but on the right was a bank of metal grates. Each grate was perhaps a meter wide and half a meter high. They were set within a half meter of each other, six grates wide and three high. The openings in the grates were small, enough to poke one or two fingers through at most.

Helen heard movement behind several of the grates that they passed. The guards stopped at the fifth column, and used a key to open the middle one. They freed Nikola's hands, lifted him up and shoved him into the rock enclosed space behind the grate feet first, folding his arms in and closing the grate with a bang and a click as it locked.

The guard holding Helen walked her over to Nikola's cell. He put a very ordinary looking handcuff on her left wrist, made sure it was tight, and hooked the other cuff through the grate and snapped it shut. As the vampires walked back toward the door she quickly checked the cells above and below Nikola while she still had light, and found them empty; she didn't want to be surprised in the dark. Then the last vampire turned off the light and closed the door behind him.

Helen thought at first she had been left in total darkness, but after a few seconds her eyes adjusted and she could see a small band of light at the bottom of the door. It was very quiet. The other prisoners had either gone back to sleep or had no curiosity about them at all.

She listened at Nikola's cell, but couldn't hear anything, no movement, not even breathing. "Nikola?" she whispered. No answer.

Helen sat down carefully to wait. Nikola was likely healing and there was nothing she could do. She wasn't too uncomfortable except for her left arm above her head hanging from the cuff, and the fact that she was distinctly underdressed for the chilly temperature of the stone she was sitting on.

She dozed a little but was brought back awake by a wet bubbling sound. She quickly got up. There was retching, wet coughing, more bubbling and wet coughing. Nikola was trying to breathe, and she wished she could hold him to help him expel the blood in his lungs, or even just wipe his face, but all she could do was listen as he struggled.

Gradually his breathing sounded drier, though labored and raspy.

"Nikola? Don't try to sit up, there's a low overhead. Nikola, can you hear me?"

"Yuh." There was more a little more coughing.

She waited. After a little while she heard him crawling closer to the grate. If she didn't look directly at it, she could see the paleness of his fingers come through the grid and tighten on it, helping him pull himself up to it. His claws were invisible in the dark.

Nikola rasped "Helen, are you all right? When that guard hit you . . . "

"I'm fine, just a few bruises. How are you healing?"

Nikola cleared his throat. "Slowly; a lot of internal injuries, but yes, they're healing. Do you have any idea what this is about?"

"They confiscated some of our clothes, the mirror, the library books, and I'm not sure what all. I heard the word 'theft', so I gather you're being charged with stealing those things."

"That's ridiculous, you know I bought everything and signed out the books."

"Do you have receipts?"

"Vampires don't do receipts."

"That could be a problem."

They both thought about it in silence for a few minutes. Then Helen asked "Do you think Andrina is behind it?"

Nikola's voice sounded a little stronger. "I'm absolutely sure Andrina is behind it, I just don't know how she organized it so fast. Well, 'a woman scorned' and all that."

"What do you think the punishment will be, if you are convicted?"

"I have no idea, and it's _when_ I'm convicted, not _if_. Somewhere between a slap on the wrist and beheading, take your pick."

"There must be something we can do."

There was another short silence, then Nikola asked "Helen, would you mind if I tasted your blood?"

The request frightened her a little bit, not that she minded letting him taste her blood, but she feared he was asking as a last request, that he was giving up. "Why do you want to taste my blood?"

"To see what it tastes like, of course. Come on, stick a finger through the grate."

He didn't sound depressed, which reassured her. She put her index and middle fingers through two adjacent holes and felt him take them gently in his hand. Then his mouth closed around her middle finger, there was a small prick and she felt him sucking on it. He released her and she drew her hand back and wiped her wet finger on her nightgown.

"Well, how do I taste?"

"Delicious, but human. I can't taste the Source Blood effects at all. I was hoping if you tasted even a little like a vampire, we could get you out of the slave class."

"A few days ago you thought I was safer in the slave class" Helen protested.

"That was when you were my slave. Tomorrow, you're going to be someone else's slave" Nikola said sadly.

"You don't know that." Helen didn't want to even think about what her life would be like if he was right.

"Face it Helen, at the very least I'm going to lose my job and have no way to support you. They'll take you away from me either as part of my punishment or out of kindness to you. They won't want a perfectly good slave to starve."

"We have to think of something."

"It's still possible that a full vampire might be able to detect some level of vampirism in you. Every one of them has a lot more experience with human and vampire blood than I do. We'll keep it as Plan C."

"Plan C? What are Plans A and B?"

"Plans A and B are likely going to get me killed. Not killed like I just was, but vampire killed, which means really, really dead; beheaded, dismembered dead."

"I don't like your plans, Nikola."

"I don't either, why don't you think of one?"

"We could jump the guards on the way to the courtroom and run like hell."

"The guards are faster and stronger than both of us, and I don't know if I'll even be able to run by then. Even if I can, vampires can augment their speed. Without weapons or any way to slow them down or speed us up, we have no chance of escaping. Any other ideas?"

"Not at the moment."

"Then I'm going to get a little sleep. Maybe something will occur to one of us in the morning."

"I hope so. Good night, Nikola." Helen sat down again. In spite of her discomfort, she slept until the hallway door opened and the light was turned on.

Four guards came in. One removed her handcuff from the grate and held her lightly against the wall as another one opened Nikola's cell. He reached in, grabbed Nikola's arm, and pulled him out.

Nikola fell to the floor, and one guard knelt on his back and put the heavy handcuffs back on him. He got off and two guards lifted Nikola to his feet.

Helen was shocked at Nikola's appearance. There were large, almost black bruises covering at least a third of his body and smears of dried blood all over him. Blood matted his hair and large areas of his t-shirt and shorts were glued to his body with it. He stood stiffly, his body tense and hunched over with his arms clenched tightly to his sides. Nikola was obviously still in a great deal of pain, and whatever healing he had achieved had gone completely to his internal organs.

A guard moved the handcuff to Helen's right wrist, and snapped the other end around Nikola's manacles so she had to stay directly behind him and to his left. With two guards leading and two guards following, they walked across the large room of desks, out another door to a long hall, finally entering what appeared to be a sort of courtroom. Nikola managed to walk on his own, but slowly. The guards let him go at his own pace as long as he kept moving.

The courtroom had several benches on two sides of an aisle, then a large open space and a long table at the far end with three large well-cushioned chairs. A smaller table and chair sat in front of one end of the table; on it were the things the guards had taken from their apartment. There was a long bench against one of the side walls. In the open space there was a yellow square painted on the floor, perhaps a meter and a half on a side.

Nikola and Helen were steered to the center of the yellow square and told to stay there. Stepping outside the square would be considered an attempt to escape, and they would be punished accordingly.

There were few other people there. Nikola locked his knees, dropped his head, slowed his breathing and stood absolutely still. Helen knew he was healing and he wouldn't be feeling the pain in his body as much while he was focused so intently. She approved, it was a wise use of his time. She preferred to watch the people coming in rather than meditate.

Two guards had taken up positions by the door they had come through and two others stood at the door behind the large table. Two more stood directly behind the yellow square, truncheons in hand. She saw the vampire from the supply store and some others she didn't recognize sit down on the long bench against the wall; witnesses most likely. There was no jury box and no tables for attorneys to sit at. If they had any opportunity to present a defense, they would have to do it themselves. Correction, Nikola would have to do it, as a slave she could take no direct part in the proceedings.

Gradually others came in. Then a harried looking female vampire came in through the door behind the large table and sat down at the small table.

Then three more vampires came through the door. Helen had half expected judicial robes or something, but they wore nothing special, although all were richly dressed. When they came in, everyone who was seated stood until the three had sat down, then everyone else reseated themselves. Nikola raised his head.

There was one female judge, one older looking male judge and one male that was very young looking. The young male vampire took the center seat at the table and spoke. "This is the case of Teslat, who has been accused of theft. Judges are High Lords Illinya, Dramelin, and Possiman. I am High Lord Possiman and I will be presiding. You are Teslat?"

"I am" Nikola said.

"Are you guilty of theft?"

"No, definitely not."

"Crobisk, manager of supply, come forward."

The vampire Helen recognized from the supply store stood up and walked over into the empty space in front of the table.

"You say Teslat stole this mirror. Tell us what happened."

"His slave, Ahelena, came in and got some things on credit. Then a few days later they came in together and showed a lot of money. They were interested in the mirror, but I had other customers so I turned away to tend them. When I turned back, they were gone and so was the mirror."

"They did not pay?"

"No, and the mirror cost forty."

Nikola spoke up. "Am I allowed to ask questions?"

"Within bounds, you may."

"How much did Helen owe?"

"That's another thing, she gave a false name at first."

"She gave a different version of her name, but the question was how much did she owe?"

"Seven."

"Did we pay it?"

Crosbick looked uncomfortable. He glanced over at the group of witnesses, and Nikola saw him looking specifically at Andrina. She crossed her arms and looked at him expectantly.

"Yes, you paid the seven." He looked back at Andrina. "It's written in the book."

"The mirror is large. If we took it, how did we manage to get it out of supply without being seen?"

"I don't know, like I said I was busy, I wasn't watching."

"So there were many people in supply at the time?"

"Yes, lots of people."

"But none of them saw us walk out with the mirror without paying? How is that possible?"

Crosbick was starting to sweat. "I don't know, it just happened that way."

"Why didn't you call the guard immediately? Why did you wait days to say anything?"

"I didn't notice it was gone until yesterday." Crosbick nervously flicked his eyes over at Andrina, who was scowling.

"How many large mirrors like this did you have in supply on the day we came in?"

"I don't know. Not many, three I think. Not a lot of people can afford them."

"So a large mirror, one of only three goes missing, and it takes you days to notice? Do you consider yourself a good supply manager?"

"Yes! There's a lot going on, I can't keep track of everything."

"But even though you didn't see us take the mirror, when you noticed it gone days later, you somehow knew that we were the ones that took it."

"It was in your apartment, of course you took it."

Nikola said gently "But you didn't know it was in our apartment when you accused us of stealing it."

"I . . . I was pretty sure, you were the last ones I saw with it."

"We paid for it. We paid forty, didn't we?"

"No, you paid thi . . . no you didn't pay."

The vampire judge broke in. "That's enough. Crosbick, thank you for your statement, you are dismissed. Gramman, come forward."

A vampire Helen didn't know got up from the long bench and walked over in front of the table.

"You are Gramman, worker in our local market?"

"Yes, that's me."

"Examine the clothing on the table. Are these things from the market?"

Gramman walked over and carefully examined each piece. He ended up holding seven items; four remained on the table.

"These things are definitely from the market, but I'm not sure about the ones I left on the table. Except for the black jacket, I've never seen that before."

"Did the defendant come to the market and look at the clothing you are holding?"

"Yes, I saw him looking at clothing on the table where these items were."

"Did he buy those items?"

"No. I didn't see him leave, but later I noticed the stock on the table was depleted even though I hadn't sold anything from there."

Nikola opened his mouth to speak, but Judge Possiman held up his hand and continued the questioning. "Why didn't you call the guard when you noticed this?"

"It's not my job to call the guard. I told the market manager I thought some things seemed to be missing."

The judge looked at Nikola, but before he could speak, Helen moved up beside him and whispered in his ear. Nikola nodded.

"High Lord, the items left on the table are no longer evidence in this case?" Nikola asked.

"That is correct, but irrelevant."

"Then may we have them now?"

"You may not, you are accused of theft, you may not hold any property until the issue is decided; although I'll grant you your underwear."

"May my slave claim her things?"

"Does she own this clothing herself, or do you own it and just allow her to wear it?"

"She owns her own clothing."

"Then she can claim it." The judge motioned at the guards behind them and one of them unlocked Helen's handcuff. She went to the table and found two pairs of her slacks, one of Nikola's shirts, and her black jacket. She put on the better of the two pairs of pants and was putting on Nikola's shirt when Judge Illinya objected.

"That is obviously Teslat's shirt, not his slave's."

Nikola responded immediately. "I give it to her."

The Judge Possiman waved his hand. "Let's not argue over a shirt. I have other things to do today. Let her have it."

Helen finished buttoning it, although it was tight across her chest, and put on her black leather jacket. She went back to Nikola carrying the other pair of pants and feeling better being dressed in spite of her bare feet. The guard re-cuffed her to Nikola.

The judge looked at Nikola. "Any questions?"

"Yes. Gramman, were you the only one working at the market while I was there?"

"No, the manager was there."

"How do you know the manager didn't take my money?"

Gramman frowned. "I don't, but he would have said something when I told him I thought some stock had been taken, wouldn't he?"

"Would he? He outranks you, he doesn't have to explain anything to you."

Gramman just shrugged. The judge said "Put the stolen items back on the table. Thank you for your statement, you are dismissed."

Nikola said "High Lord, is the market manager going to make a statement?"

"No, he couldn't be here today. Librarian Bessick, please come forward.

But a female who was obviously not Bessick stood up, walked over to the table and addressed the judges.

"High Lords, Bessick was called away suddenly. This has never happened before, I cannot explain it. I am his assistant, Ellinie, may I be of help?"

Judge Possiman frowned, but gestured to the female vampire sitting at the small table. "Give her the book" he ordered.

She handed Ellinie a large, flat, gray book that Nikola recognized as the library register used to check out books.

"Are those five books from the library?" the judge asked, pointing to the books on the small table.

Ellinie examined the books carefully. "They are."

"Were they properly checked out?"

Nikola was puzzled. He knew he had checked the books out, where was this going?

Ellinie started looking through the register. She paged through the last few days and then did it again, frowning. She closed the book and said "It is very odd, High Lords, there are two pages missing from the register."

Ellinie turned and looked at Nikola. She looked him up and down carefully, and pity showed in her face. She turned back to the judges.

"However, I have an excellent memory. I have only to look at a page in the register and I remember every entry. Master Teslat checked out three of these books one day and two books later. The entries would be on the missing pages, which I will rewrite as soon as I am dismissed."

There was a murmur through the spectators and Judge Illinya and Judge Possiman looked angry. Judge Dramelin, however, looked either pleased or amused, Nikola wasn't sure which. Up to now the High Lord had been completely impassive, taking no active part in the proceedings.

Ellinie turned back to Nikola. "Have you finished with the books? If so, I will take them back to the library and be absolutely sure they are checked back in properly."

Nikola nodded and said "Thank you. Thank you very much." He wasn't sure if she was brave or foolish, but he appreciated her honesty.

Judge Possiman cleared his throat. "Ellinie, thank you for your statement, you are dismissed. Guard Sergeant Tollick, please step forward."

One of the guards behind them stepped into the open space. Helen recognized him as one of the guards that had arrested them.

"Sergeant Tollick, you led the arrest team that took Teslat into custody?"

"Yes sir."

"Please tell us what happened."

"We knocked on his door and when he opened it we went in and started looking for the stolen items. He attacked one of my men violently, broke his neck, so we had to subdue him. Then we confiscated the stolen goods and took him and his slave into custody."

"All these items were found in Teslat's quarters?"

"Yes sir."

The judge looked at Nikola who asked "The little statue, where did you find that?"

"Um, I'm not sure, I think it was in the bedroom. Yes, that's where it was, on the nightstand."

"That's very peculiar, since I never saw it before now. You're sure you didn't have it in your pocket when you came in?"

"Of course not! I'm not the thief, you are the thief!"

"Where am I supposed to have stolen it from?"

The judge stopped Tollick from answering. "That is not under the purview of this witness. Anything else?"

"Why did I attack your guard?"

"How should I know? Maybe you were trying to keep us from finding the stolen property."

"Did your guard not strike my slave and knock her into the wall? Look at her cheek, it's been injured." Helen stepped as far forward as she could and turned her head to give the judges a good view of the bruise.

"Your slave tried to interfere and was stopped, moved out of the way."

"You damaged my property." Nikola was beginning to sound angry.

"You broke my guard's neck!"

"He's completely healed, it will take days for her to heal!" Nikola was edging closer to the border of the yellow box; Helen pulled back on her handcuff to keep him from crossing the line.

"Enough!" said Judge Possiman. Sergeant Tollick, thank you for your statement, you are dismissed. Low Lord Andrina, please step forward."

Andrina came to the front of the table and greeted the judges. "High Lords Dramelin, Possiman, and Illinya, how nice to see you." She bowed a little.

High Lord Possiman said "Low Lord Andrina, we wish the circumstances were better, but it is always a pleasure. Please tell us what happened with you and this Teslat fellow."

Andrina didn't look at Nikola, but spoke only to the judges. "He was the cleaning boy in Lab Two, which as you know is my responsibility. He showed great promise and had some intriguing ideas, so I promoted him to lab manager. Then I invited him over to socialize, so I could get to know him better. He seemed polite and intelligent the first evening, but the second evening he showed a great deal of interest in my possessions."

"Interest how?"

"He picked them up, examined them, even asked me what they cost. It was gauche of course, but he is obviously low born, so I was tolerant. Then he said he could not come the next night. The next day I noticed my little dragon was missing, but I thought it might have been moved or taken by my slaves for cleaning and polishing."

"When were you sure it was stolen?"

"The next night when Teslat came. He was rude and tried to kiss me, and I told him I didn't want him to come any more. I could see that he had mistaken my attempts to get to know him for something more. When I rejected his advances, he became angry, and said something like 'at least I got the little statue out of you'. I'm sorry, but he was quite crude, I cannot repeat his language. Then he left, and a search revealed the statue was gone."

"He admitted taking it?"

"Yes, but only in the heat of the moment. I had no idea he was so sly and cunning."

"You reported it to the guard."

"Yes, and they arrested him just hours later. I am so grateful to them, without them men like Teslat would get away with their crimes."

Helen looked at Nikola, who made a gagging motion. The judge asked him "Do you have any questions? And let me remind you to watch your language."

"Just one. Low Lord Andrina, however did you learn to lie so well?" Nikola asked sweetly.

The judge responded angrily "There will be none of that." In a pleasant tone he said "Low Lord Andrina, the court is very sorry you have suffered at the hands of this commoner. Thank you for your statement, and you are dismissed with our sympathy."

As Andrina walked back to the side bench, she smirked at Nikola. Helen wanted to punch her and glared back, but Nikola just smiled back confidently. Andrina's smirk faded.

The Judge Possiman looked left and right at the other judges. High Lord Illinya nodded firmly, but High Lord Dramelin just shrugged and then shook his head.

Possiman spoke. "Teslat, you have been accused of theft by Low Lord Andrina, and three others have substantiated the charge. You are cleared of the theft of the library books, but found guilty of stealing the mirror, clothing, and a valuable figurine. You are also guilty of resisting arrest and assaulting a guard. Do you wish to make a statement before sentencing?"

Nikola muttered "Time for Plan A" and stood very straight. He said loudly "You have no authority to judge me. I outrank you."

The judge looked startled. "What? Have you lost your mind?"

"Not at all. I am the only surviving blood descendent of Queen Afina, which makes me at least a prince, if not a king, and you have no right to judge me. Your Most High Lord acknowledged this the first day I came here when he tasted my . . . "

"Stop! Not one more word" the judge said threateningly.

". . . blood. In fact, I think you, High Lord Dramelin, were present at the time . . . "

The judge made a motion with his hand and the two guards behind Helen and Nikola attacked him with their truncheons. With his hands secured behind his back, Nikola couldn't defend himself and only stepped away from Helen as far as he could as the guards beat him to the ground, dragging her down too. When they considered him subdued, the guards took him by the arms and stood him up. Nikola sagged between them, supporting very little of his own weight.

Judge Possiman had to shout over the hubbub in the courtroom. "Teslat, you are sentenced to reduction in rank to bottom Three, loss of employment, and confiscation of all goods and property."

One of the guards undid Helen's handcuff from Nikola's manacles and clipped it to his own wrist. The two guards holding Nikola dragged him from the courtroom.

Helen asked her guard in alarm "Where are they taking him? What are they going to do to him?"

The guard said "They'll dump him in the Pit."

"The what?" Helen asked in alarm.

"The Pit; it's not actually a pit, it's just what we call the slum area." The guard turned her to face the long table and the three judges.

High Lord Possiman looked at her coldly and rapidly said "Slave Helen, also known as Ahelena, you are no longer owned by Teslat. You are now a public slave and available for purchase. If no one offers to buy you within two days, you will be sent to the pens to serve the public good. Court adjourned."


	12. Chapter 12 New Beginnings

Helen was taken by her guard to a cell. It was very much like a surface prison cell, with a set of bars along the hallway, a cot, half wall and toilet down the right hand side, a wash basin on the back wall, and a few pegs for clothes on the left hand wall. She was left there for only a few minutes when a short, thin, nervous vampire with a clip board came to the cell bars.

"You are Helen?"

She came over to the bars as well. He was no taller than she was, practically a dwarf in vampire terms. "I am. Who are you?"

"Oh no one really. I am just here to get your information for the ad. We need to post what we have for sale so people can bid."

He looked her up and down. "Young, healthy female, tall and strong, and . . . let's say pleasant countenance. You're really quite beautiful, but we don't want to attract the wrong kind of buyer, do we?"

"Of course not" Helen replied hesitantly. She wasn't sure what the 'wrong kind' meant, but the little man seemed to be trying to be helpful.

"Do you have any special skills?"

_I can shoot a fly off the wall at twenty paces, but I doubt that's the sort of skill you are interested in. _ "I can read and write and I'm good with figures."

"Really?" he asked doubtfully. "There's a sign on the wall by the toilet. Read it to me."

"Head must be visible at all times" Helen recited.

"Very good! Quite a selling point. What type of work did you do for your former master?"

"Laundry, cleaning, that sort of thing."

"Maid of all work. Good. Now I have a note here that you own your clothing, and that we need to pick it up at Teslat's prior residence. Is there anything else there that belongs to you personally?"

"In my room there's a knapsack with some things in it that are mine, and a small box." Helen used her hands to show him the size of the walkie-talkie. She doubted they would actually give it to her, but in the midst of bureaucracy stranger things had happened.

The little vampire nodded. "Now the way this works, there are two rounds of bidding. The first ends at noon tomorrow, and the highest bid at that time will be posted. Then everyone gets another day to submit sealed bids. At noon day after tomorrow, highest bid wins, as long as it's over the reserve price."

"How much is that?" Helen asked out of curiosity.

"It hasn't been set yet, but with your skills, I suppose a hundred would be about right. Now you understand potential bidders will want to see you before they bid. You will be taken to a room where they can ask you to do whatever they want such as lift a weight, walk around, read something, take off your clothes, explain the proper way to remove a stain, or anything at all that might pertain to your duties."

"Anything?" Helen asked appalled. She was starting to understand what it really meant to be a slave.

"Oh don't worry, there will be a female guard present and they're not allowed to touch you. Whoever buys you won't want you damaged. After that, of course, your owner can do as he or she pleases. I need to get this ad posted and I'm sure your things will arrive sometime later today."

The little vampire left hurriedly and Helen sat down on her cot. Her mind was racing with various horrible scenarios about her new life as a slave. She considered meditating, but she was definitely not in the mood.

/

Nikola awoke lying on his back on a hard surface. There were sounds of voices and people walking around near him. He slowly opened his eyes.

He was on the floor of a cavern with the cavern wall directly to his left. To his right were hovels and poorly dressed vampires going about their lives. Two ragged children ran past without looking at him. In fact, no one was looking at him, everyone avoided seeing him.

He sat up and slowly swiveled so his back was to the wall and he could lean back. He took stock of himself. The back of his head hurt a little, the guards had just dropped him there, not caring if his head bounced when he landed. His bruises were faded to a lighter blue or yellow green. He was a little hungry, but he didn't feel much like getting up and going to the pens. He didn't really feel like doing anything, so he just sat there.

What Nikola wanted to do was go rescue Helen, but he didn't see how he could. He couldn't outfight a bunch of vampires, and he didn't even know where she was. He had no money to buy her; all he owned in this world was his filthy torn underwear. There was nothing he could do.

He watched the activity in the cavern. He didn't know exactly where he was, but it seemed like the slum area he and Helen had passed through on their trip to the countryside. So the pens wouldn't be too far away. He loathed the idea of imposing his dirty, smelly self on some poor slave that would have to let him feed no matter how crazy and revolting he seemed. Well, maybe he would go later, and too bad for whoever's turn it was. That was what being a slave was like. He thought again of Helen. He hoped she got a good master that would appreciate her.

There was no hope of him working his way up again. No one would hire him, a convicted thief, and he would need a shower and clean clothes to make himself presentable enough to even apply for a job; which took money he didn't have, and couldn't get a job to earn. It really was hopeless.

Eventually, someday, Helen would probably escape and come looking for him. That could take years, decades even, or might never happen at all. She might be killed, or her spirit broken. He couldn't imagine her being broken, but it could happen; the vampires had literally forever to accomplish it.

Someone from the surface would likely come looking for them eventually. It would be days without contact from him or Helen before that happened. He hoped it wasn't someone he liked; they wouldn't stand a chance, and would probably be killed or enslaved. He couldn't wish a fate like that on anyone, even William, no matter how obnoxious he got.

He hoped Henry never came. The vampires would put a collar and leash on him and try to train him to do tricks. That would not end well.

Plan A had been a bust. He wasn't surprised, but he had hoped. That was one thing this society had in common with ancient vampires; if you wanted power, you had to be able to take it and hold it. The strict regimentation here had made him think that the original acknowledgement of his blood descent by the Most High Lord might cause them to give him some authority, just as the children of the lords here inherited their parents' rank. But unlike them he was an outsider. Still, he was a prince by blood, even if his kingdom consisted of just the space he was sitting in.

Plan B was even less likely to ever succeed. He had thought to challenge someone of high rank to a duel, even the Most High Lord himself. As far as he could tell from the library books, the rules of dueling still applied, but in the days he had been here he hadn't seen or heard of a single duel. He still thought he could win with knives using his magnetic ability, but in his current state no one would take a challenge from him seriously. A ragamuffin challenging the Most High Lord to a duel would likely be incarcerated as insane, or just cut down by the guards.

No hope, no plan, no way forward. Maybe he could escape to the surface by himself, but he could imagine his reception by anyone from the Sanctuary if he showed up looking like this and telling them he abandoned Helen. He couldn't abandon Helen, wouldn't abandon Helen, even if there was nothing he could do to help her beyond sitting in a cavern somewhere near her and wishing her well.

So here he was, the big brilliant half-vampire scientist, sitting in his grubby underwear without a plan, without a hope, just a total failure in a vampire society. And he had wanted so much to be part of a vampire society, to belong, to be their leader. What a fool he had been.

/

It didn't take long for prospective buyers to show up. Helen was taken to a small room, with a female guard present as promised. Two female vampires had her read aloud, write a few lines, and do some simple arithmetic. They seemed impressed, and Helen was taken back to her cell.

An hour or so later her clothes were brought in accompanied by the little man with the clipboard. She got her underwear, shoes, and several articles of clothing that hadn't been confiscated as stolen, as well as her knapsack with her little medical kit.

"What about the box?" she asked.

"That doesn't belong to you. Teslat identified it as his in the paperwork for claiming it from Lab One. Sorry."

She wasn't left alone for long. She managed to change into a better outfit in between sessions of being viewed and tested. She was asked if she had much experience using a pick and shovel and she replied truthfully "Very little." One poorly dressed male vampire had her undress, saying since she looked big and strong, he might want her for breeding. Afterwards, as she dressed, the female guard told her not to worry, he never bought anything he just liked to look; the pens had restricted him to male humans only for feeding, and this was how he got his kicks.

She slept restlessly through the night, having nightmares of being fed on in the pens. In the morning she was taken very early to the interview room. The surprise was when High Lord Dramelin came by, and spoke to her directly.

"Helen, I noticed you in the courtroom yesterday. You seemed quite devoted to Teslat, was he a good master to you?"

"Yes, High Lord, he treated me very well and I . . . I like him very much."

Dramelin seemed pleased with her answer. "What sort of work did you do for him?"

"Laundry, cleaning, that sort of thing."

"What was your relationship with him when you were on the surface?"

Helen didn't know what to say. Did Dramelin know that humans weren't slaves there? He seemed so different from the others who had come to question her; perhaps she had better tell him the truth. "I . . . we were friends."

He nodded, as if she had confirmed his suspicions. "Do you know where he is now?"

"Not precisely, I was told he would be taken to the Pit."

"That is quite likely; I believe the guards often use the area as a dumping ground for undesirables. I may be able to help him, would you like that?"

"Yes, very much. Please."

He smiled. "He is innocent of theft, of that I am sure. Were you aware of his claim to royal blood before the trial?"

"Not really. I knew he had gotten blood from Afina, but it never occurred to me that it conveyed any status."

"Blood is very important to us; blood descent can be truer than genetic descent. Thank you for your time."

Dramelin left and Helen was taken back to her cell. She fervently hoped he had meant it when he said he would help Nikola. Later she was brought back twice to the room and ordered to demonstrate her ability to read, write, and figure. A third time a male vampire accompanied by a fat human female discussed her positive and negative points regarding a position as a serving maid.

At midday the little vampire came back with his clipboard and told her the current high bid was 325 by a High Lord named Tokickat.

"Which one was he?"

"He never comes himself, and I don't know who he sent as his representative. He sponsors a lot of market stalls, and can always use someone good with numbers. It's going well, don't you think? That's quite a nice bid for the first day. Your reserve is met, so you definitely will be sold. See you tomorrow" he said cheerfully and went off flipping pages on his clipboard.

_Well at least I'm not going to the pens. And working the market could mean trips to the surface and a chance to escape_. Helen spent a boring afternoon, no one else came to look at her. She slept better that night, in the morning remembering only one dream of walking on a grassy hillside with a bright blue sky above her.

/

Nikola spent the first night right where he sat. As the area became quieter, and more people went into their huts, he gradually got bored watching them and just let himself lean over and slide down the wall until he was back on the floor. He went to sleep surprisingly quickly, but what else did he have to do?

In the morning he felt hungrier so he got up and went to the pens. He walked around them and found a public bathroom which he used. He washed his hands and ran water over his head in an attempt to get some of the matted blood out of his hair. Using a wad of wet paper towels, he soaked his t-shirt with warm water and slowly peeled it off of himself, losing some chest hair in the process to the blood clotted in the shirt. He rinsed it out, used more damp paper towels to wipe dried blood off of his torso, and put the shirt back on.

It was the best he could do with what he had. He really wanted a hot shower with lots of soap, shampoo, and thick fluffy towels, but there was little likelihood he would ever have that sort of luxury again. He went around to the feeding booths.

The pen manager stopped him from going in where he had before, pointing to another area and telling him to go there to feed. The booths there were just slatted boards on two sides with dirty cloth curtains at the entrances. There were no chairs. Nikola went in one, drew the curtain closed behind him and waited.

Eventually a fat man came in, looked him up and down, and said "What the eff are you?"

"A hungry vampire. It's your duty to feed me."

The man hung back. "You're filthy and you look like a nut. I don't have to feed you if you're effing nuts. I don't want my throat ripped out."

Nikola said calmly "I'm not insane, just poor" and took a step toward him, but the man backed up and said "I want a monitor."

Nikola just shrugged and the man went out, coming back a few minutes later with a vampire that worked at the pens. The vampire monitor put one hand on Nikola's head, gripping his hair but not pulling on it. With Nikola supposedly under control, the man let him feed.

_Like I couldn't rip this guy's throat out anyway_ Nikola thought, but fed slowly and stopped when the hand on his head twitched his hair. Nikola found satisfaction in the look on the monitoring vampire's face when he let go and saw the diluted blood from Nikola's hair all over his hand.

Nikola went back to the Pit. He had never seen anyone who looked as bad as he did in the main cavern, and expected if he went there the guards would just beat him up and dump him back there anyway.

He wandered around a while, watching people avoid meeting his eyes and pretend he wasn't there. He saw no point in forcing himself on them, so he found a spot out of the way and sat down against the wall again. Nothing happened.

The only good thing he could see was that it never rained or snowed underground, and the temperature was fairly constant if a little cool. He had quite a large range of tolerance for temperature variance though and didn't mind. He could spend every day like this, feeding at the pens and doing nothing; what a depressing thought.

He wished he had a pigeon to cuddle. No birds underground, no cities with art and culture, no possibility of running experiments, not even any wine, except what he had imported and now had no access to. This was just not going to do. He got up and started walking around again, not sure what he was looking for, but certain that he had wasted enough time and that he should be doing something.

Eventually something found him. Four big, but very young male vampires stopped him and surrounded him.

One of them in front said "Who the eff do you think you are? We're the Sewer Rats and this is our territory. You want to walk here, you have to pay a toll. Can you pay the toll little boy? Did your mommy give you any money?"

One that had circled around behind him said "Your mommy doesn't have any money, I know because I just finished effing her, but she was just an old hag and afterwards I ripped her head off."

Nikola sighed. Stupid kids were everywhere. One of the ones in front of him was quite slender, his pants might be a little long but they would probably fit. Nikola swiveled and kicked the knee of one of the toughs in back of him, slashed across the faces of two others, who staggered back. He stepped into the thin boy, put a foot behind his ankle and pushed. The boy went down on his back, while the one with the broken knee started whimpering.

Nikola grabbed a shoe in each hand and tore them off, then moved in and put his foot on the boy's crotch. He heard the two he had slashed approaching, swiveled without moving his foot and pointed his finger at them. "Stop right there. Do you want me to castrate him?" They froze, unsure whether Nikola could actually castrate their friend with his foot. Idiots.

Nikola pantsed the one on the ground and said conversationally "Sewer Rats is a very poor name; it implies you're little furry garbage eaters, and certainly not capable of taking on an adult." He put the kid's pants on and rolled the cuffs once. He turned again to the other two.

"You, straighten his leg out so he can heal his knee properly. You, I like that shirt, take it off."

To his satisfaction, both boys obeyed him. They really weren't very tough, but now they were his. He put on the shirt, found the shoes he had taken off of the thin boy and put them on. They were a little wide, but not too bad. The boy on the ground had scrambled back from him as soon as he was able, and now stood up, bare legged and shoeless. The boy with the damaged knee had recovered too, and all four stood together goggling at him.

"I'm Teslat. Think of a better name for the gang. Do you have a clubhouse, do you meet somewhere around here, or just live with your parents and pretend you're big tough guys?"

The one without the shirt said "I'm Tiger, we have a shed . . . "

"Do you even know what a tiger is?"

"I've seen pictures."

Nikola snorted in disgust. "I don't know, you guys may be hopeless, but show me the shed; I'm moving in."

"Are . . . are you going to lead us?"

Nikola did not want to spend his time teaching four kids how to grow up. He had better things to do, although he wasn't sure exactly what. "No, I'm going to give you some advice. Re-think your careers; you are not cut out for this. Have a club, be buddies, but go back to school, join the guard, or get jobs."

The shed was small, not two meters square and even Nikola had to duck to go in. Inside were three boxes and one pail they had been using as seats, a couple of empty jars, and a few rags. Nikola looked at the four boys standing outside looking worried and said "Go home. This is mine for now, but don't worry about it, I'll only be here a few days at most."

Three of them shuffled off, looking back now and then, but the boy who had lost his pants trotted off quickly. Nikola made sure they were gone and closed the door. He stripped, took off his underwear, and re-dressed in his newly acquired outer clothes. He took the underwear back to the public bathroom and washed his t-shirt but especially his shorts, and rinsed off his head again. He wasn't sure if his hair was all that clean, but at least all the lumps of dried blood were gone.

Back at the shed he draped his laundry over a couple of boxes and sat down on the third to think. The way he had advanced in rank before was through the patronage of a lord. So he was going to have to find another lord to help him. The only lord he knew that didn't think he was a thief was the older-looking judge at his trial, what was his name? Oh yes, High Lord Dramelin. Dramelin might feel Nikola had been railroaded, which he had, and be willing to listen to him. The tricky part was finding the guy and getting a chance to talk to him.

When his underwear was dry, Nikola redressed and went out. He found the main pathway and walked back to the central cavern. A lot of lords sponsored human vendors, so he went to the common market and started asking around.

He hadn't had any success when a young, lithe, very active-looking female vampire came up to him. She was dressed in off-white pants with a dark blue stripe down the side, and an off-white tunic with matching dark blue trim at the cuffs and neck; it looked to Nikola like a uniform of some kind.

She smiled at him in a friendly way and said "Excuse me sir, I noticed you came in from the area down past the pens. Do you happen to know someone named Teslat? He would be a short fellow like yourself but dressed in just underwear, and likely be very dirty and poor looking."

"Why do you want him?" Nikola asked warily.

"My master, High Lord Dramelin would like to speak to him. There's a reward of ten for information leading to finding Teslat."

Nikola started laughing and held out his hand. "I'll take the ten. I'm Teslat."

She looked doubtful. "You're the right height, but you have clothes."

"That doesn't change who I am. Besides, High Lord Dramelin knows what I look like; he just sat in judgment of me yesterday."

Her face lit up and she dug in her pocket and handed him the coin. "I'm so glad I found you, we've been looking for hours. Will you come with me? My master has his sedan chair waiting to take you to his estate."

Estate? Sedan chair? Nikola liked the sound of that. He nodded and followed her. He had no idea what he was getting into, but his situation couldn't get any worse, could it?

/

Helen waited anxiously for news of who had bought her, pacing in her cell. Would High Lord Dramelin bid high enough to win her, or Tokickat? Or someone else entirely?

When the little vampire with the clipboard finally showed up, she practically leapt to the bars. "Well?" she demanded.

"Oh, it went very well indeed. We got 725 for you, quite a nice price. And at that price, your new master will most surely take exceptionally good care of you. You should be very pleased."

"But who is it? Who bought me?"

"Huh? Oh yes, you would want to know that. The high bidder's name is Low Lord Andrina. There's just some paperwork to complete, then I'm sure she'll be in to pick you up. She has a place here just off the main cavern, so you won't have a long walk."

Helen hardly heard him nattering on, she was horrified. Andrina would only have bought her because she belonged to Teslat, and Andrina hated Teslat. She'd done everything she could to hurt Nikola, who at least had some rights as a vampire. As a human, Helen had no rights at all, what would Andrina do to her?

"Well, I must be off, more lucky slaves to inform. Everyone was sold today, not one human is going to the pens. What a good day." He walked on down the row of cells, but Helen wasn't paying him any attention.

She packed her clothes in her knapsack. She doubted Andrina would wait for her to gather her things so she needed to be ready. She sat on her cot with the knapsack strapped on and waited. Time dragged, but she wanted it to move more slowly yet.

Finally there were footsteps, and Andrina came down the hallway with two large male slaves. She stopped outside Helen's cell, smiling triumphantly. A guard opened the door, and the two slaves went in. One of them fastened a heavy collar around Helen's neck, and snapped two leads on to it. Each slave took a lead and led her out of the cell.

Andrina said "Helen isn't it? I don't like that name, perhaps I'll change it. You don't mind if I change your name do you?"

Helen was determined to survive as long as she could, and hope she would have a chance to escape. She lowered her eyes and said "Whatever you wish, Low Lord Andrina."

"Good, now come along." The four of them left the cells and went out through various hallways into the main cavern. No one paid any attention to them as they turned into the more expensive residence area. At Andrina's door one of the male slaves moved ahead and opened it for her, and they went into the foyer.

Andrina smiled at her again. "You don't need that, take it off" she said, indicating Helen's pack. Helen took it off; Andrina grabbed it but held it away from herself like it was dirty.

"I'm not sure if I'm going to call you Dirty Slug or Filthy Slut yet, do you have a preference?"

Helen shook her head. "No, Low Lord."

"Take her to the slave quarters, and put her in the punishment room. Be sure the door is locked when you leave."

The male slaves chorused "Yes, Low Lord" and led Helen away.

/

Nikola rode alone in a two-person sedan chair carried by what he could only call a matched set of humans. Four big men of about the same height with the same length brown hair, dressed in the same off-white and dark blue uniforms, carried the enclosed chair easily. The ride was very smooth with only some rhythmic swaying. The young athletic girl trotted ahead of them.

Nikola left the side curtains open so he could watch the passing scenery, but also so he could keep track of the route in case he had to make his way back by himself. It took an hour and a half at a slow jog to reach Lord Dramelin's estate.

It was impressive. Situated on an underground lake, the main house was only two stories but Nikola estimated at least sixty rooms, possibly more since he couldn't see it all from where he alighted. There were several other large buildings nearby, and from the materials and style they appeared to be part of the estate as well.

The girl led him up twenty wide shallow steps to the front door, where he was met by a half dozen more humans, all smiling and bowing in a way that made him think they wanted something from him. The girl left him with them, and one of them stepped forward.

A tall, older woman addressed him. "Master Teslat, we are very glad you are here. High Lord Dramelin will be very pleased when he returns, and in the meantime he has left instructions about you. I am Jane, and you can ask me for anything you need. Please come with me, your suite is waiting for you."

Nikola followed her, asking "Do you know what the High Lord wants with me?"

"He didn't say, only that you are to be treated as if you are the High Lord himself."

Jane opened the door to a palatial suite, with a huge ornately furnished sitting room with multiple doors leading into other rooms beyond. She led him to a large bedroom with an ancient four poster bed complete with curtains that could easily have slept six, chairs, tables, chests, armoires and paintings. Beyond that room she showed him a completely modern bathroom sporting a bath and shower, hot tub, double sink, a heated towel rack complete with large off-white fluffy towels, and a selection of soaps, shampoos, skin products, and jars and bottles he couldn't identify off hand.

"When you have finished here, there is a robe and slippers for you to use, and we will leave a selection of underwear in the bedroom for you to choose what is most comfortable for you. Then please come to the outer room, Andre and his crew wish to measure you for your wardrobe."

She leaned in close and whispered "Please don't dawdle, poor Andre will just die of embarrassment if he doesn't have you completely outfitted by the time the High Lord returns."

Nikola was flabbergasted, and couldn't think of anything to say to her before she zipped out of the bathroom, closing the door behind her. He looked around and started laughing again, but stopped himself. This wasn't a dream; he really had been kidnapped into the lap of luxury. One thing he had learned in a life of ups and downs: take advantage of the upside when it presented itself.

Less than a half hour later, clean and smelling very nice, and dressed in underwear that had to be at least a silk blend, he presented himself to an eager human crew. They swarmed over him, measuring, holding up fabrics, and suggesting colors and styles. They had large folding tables and sewing machines; at one point Nikola thought he counted nearly thirty people in the room, but he wasn't sure because not that many were staying in one place.

In less than two hours he was dressed in a pale gray shirt, black tie, charcoal three piece suit and black shoes that felt hand made for his feet. Andre chivvied him in front of a full length mirror, and Nikola had to admit he looked good; very, very good. The best suit he had ever owned was no better than what he was wearing now.

A woman named Rose begged him to let her trim his hair, and he acquiesced. When she was finished, he was equally impressed; his hair looked just like it always had except perfect. His usual "hair going every which way" look was a sculptured masterpiece instead. It wouldn't last, of course, he had the tendency to run a hand through his hair absent-mindedly, but for one moment at least he looked like an air-brushed photo in a magazine.

Jane returned and announced that High Lord Dramelin had returned, and would Master Teslat care to join him in the library? Master Teslat would indeed; Nikola wanted to know what was going on. There had to be a worm in any apple this perfect.

High Lord Dramelin greeted him with a smile and a little bow, which Nikola returned. Nikola was distracted by the library; it was bigger than the Sanctuary's, and many of the books looked very old. Perhaps later he would have a chance at it.

"Master Teslat- or perhaps I should call you Nikola Tesla?"

"How do you know that name?"

"I was with the Most High Lord when you were brought in, and I was one of those who tasted your blood. Thank you, by the way, for the update in my language skills. I haven't been on the surface for nearly a century and languages do evolve."

Nikola nodded acknowledgement. "I am not sure of the etiquette of this situation, but I prefer to get to the point. Why am I here?"

"Let us sit, this will take some time. First, please satisfy my curiosity. Are you the same Nikola Tesla who was inventing so much in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?"

"I am. Perhaps you will satisfy my curiosity as well. Why do you appear as old as a fifty-year-old human? As an immortal, you could look twenty if you chose."

"True, but I am not young, I do not act young, so why should I look young? And oddly enough, even though everyone here is immortal or nearly so, a look of age engenders a certain amount of unconscious respect. It is not logical, but it is true."

Nikola accepted that, but returned to his question. "You have taken me out of the Pit, and gone to some trouble and expense to treat me amazingly well. Why?"

Dramelin leaned forward in his chair. "Because you and I each have something the other needs. Let me tell you a little story. Long ago, when humans started to rise up against vampire rule, vampires began to withdraw to fortified cities, castles, defensible places. Sometimes the withdrawal was slow and orderly, sometimes it was done in haste. There was not enough room for everyone in those places, so the leaders took their officers, scientists, artists, great thinkers, great talents and the like. What do you think happened to the rest of the vampires- the clerks, accountants, foot soldiers, ordinary work-a-day vampires?"

Nikola leaned back and crossed his legs. What Dramelin was telling him meshed with what he already knew. "Humans killed them, or sterilized them, which shortly had the same result."

"Indeed, and eventually the humans became numerous and improved their weapons sufficiently that they were able to destroy even the best fortified strongholds."

"Like Bhalasaam."

"Exactly. But of course not every vampire was found and killed. Mother and I, for example, traveled extensively in China, India, and various remote areas quite comfortably while the worst of the bloodshed was happening in Europe. Here, a group of the clerks and accountants found a network of caves to hide out in. Underground in the dark, vampire vision, claws, and speed outweighed human numbers and weapons. The clerks and accountants survived, set up their society, and gradually expanded their territory. They captured some of their pursuers which discouraged further attempts to get at them and later kidnapped a few humans from the surface to establish a breeding community of slaves."

"That would explain a great deal. This society has always struck me as being a pale shadow of that of the ancient vampires, more like a human society."

"Keep in mind Nikola- may I call you Nikola? My name on the surface was Rene Drambaud, and you can call me Rene. As I was saying, keep in mind, under vampire rule humans mostly had contact with the low level functionaries- the clerks and accountants if you will, and when the humans rebuilt after the war against our people, they used the pattern they knew, the one the every-day vampires had taught them. Humans copied vampires, so what you find here does seem very much the same. I know it's nothing like the books on the ancient vampire civilization. Vampire literature doesn't address the clerks, but neither do human history books, do they?"

"I suppose I can't argue with that. American history is all about the Presidents, generals, inventors, wars, and a little about those who contributed to American culture. You won't find anything about how a small town treasurer did his job."

"Precisely. Do you know why the king is called Most High Lord and not His Majesty?"

"I'm sure you're going to tell me."

Rene laughed. "You have me there. It's because he holds the office of king, but is not actually royal. He is the Most High Lord, because he is descended from the highest ranking functionary that made it to this sanctuary. And I do mean descended, none of the original vampires that escaped down here are still alive. The initial hardship took its toll, and living underground for centuries did something to their minds. Those who were born down here don't seem to have a problem with it, and now of course they can make limited forays to the surface. Personally, I like to take a little tour on the surface every century or so, just to see how things are going."

"Ah, I see the point approaching."

"I believe I could do a far better job of running this place than the Most High Lord, but I have no right to challenge him. As the blood descendent of Queen Afina, you do."

Nikola nodded. "I see. I have a blood right that he doesn't. So why do I need you, Rene?"

"I have wealth and power and can ensure your rule is accepted and supported."

"You want me to be your puppet."

"No, you would be king, at least to the extent you choose to be. I would expect my voice to be heard, my ideas considered fairly. Do you intend to spend the rest of your life here?"

Nikola thought for a moment. At one time he would have jumped at the chance to be king of the vampires. But running a SCIU facility had taught him he didn't love administration the way he loved inventing and experimenting. And he seemed to be making progress with Helen, at least he was living next door to her now at the Sanctuary and she seemed more receptive to him. He said noncommittally, "I don't know, I do have other commitments."

"I'm sure we can work something out that would be agreeable. But it's getting late, that discussion will wait until tomorrow. For now, I will tell you that I have purchased everything of yours that was confiscated, including the bar. Andrina is going to be rather upset when she finds out; I believe she thought for some reason it was automatically hers. In any case, your things are in your suite. I am bidding on your slave Helen, but since the bidding is blind, I may not get her initially. If I do not, I will offer a profit to whoever wins her and buy her for you."

"You are very generous, but let me be clear. If you fail to obtain Helen, there will be no agreement between us."

Rene stood up. "Don't worry, I am very rich, and I want to be your friend. Together we could accomplish a great deal. Feel free to use the library, and anything you want that I can provide, just ask. Get used to living like a king. Goodnight Nikola."

"Goodnight, Rene."

A/N: This chapter is far longer than I had planned, so I'm cutting it off here even though Nikola's time line is still more than a day behind Helen's. I'll catch him up next chapter.


	13. Chapter 13 Grandmother

Nikola spent most of the night perusing the books in the library, then wandered back to his suite. He explored what was behind the rest of the doors and found several bedrooms and a kitchen stocked with a variety of drinks including both whole blood and plasma in the refrigerator.

He slept comfortably in the oversized bed with pleasant dreams of sharing it with three young, nubile women, which gradually changed into fantasies of acrobatic sex with Helen. Morning came all too soon.

He found the dressers and armoires in his bedroom had been half filled the previous day with beautiful, expensive clothing, and he expected they would be completely filled by the end of the day. Nikola was becoming very fond of Andre and his gang of tailors, and wondered if he could find a way to have them keep making clothes for him even after he went back to the Sanctuary. Assuming he could figure out how to actually complete this mission to Helen's satisfaction and get the two of them back there.

Nikola dressed in a navy pinstripe suit, warmed and consumed a bag of whole blood, and went in search of his host. They had a great deal to discuss.

The servants directed him to the High Lord's office, where Nikola found Rene behind a large, ornate desk with neat piles of paper scattered across it. Rene was writing when he came in and held up a finger for him to wait, so he sat down and crossed his legs.

Rene finished his document. "Good morning, Nikola. Did you sleep well?" he asked politely.

"Very well, and you?"

Rene shrugged. "I spent a restless night. I was worried about this morning. Mother wants to meet you."

"Are you afraid she won't like me? I can be quite charming."

"I'm sure, but you must be very, very careful with Mother. She is very old, very powerful, and doesn't really think like us anymore."

Nikola blinked and sat forward on his chair. "Your mother is powerful? How old is she?"

"I don't know exactly. She made me her blood descendent about five hundred years ago, and I'm sure she was well over a thousand then, perhaps as old as two thousand. She's never told me, I'm not sure she even knows her own age."

"But her mind is all right?"

"As I said, she doesn't look at things the same way we do, but she certainly isn't senile."

"Why does she want to meet me?"

"She didn't say. But if you are going to be king here, she would have to approve of you first. You are hardly out of diapers compared to her, and if she doesn't find you acceptable, you will not survive the meeting."

Nikola sat back and thought for a moment. "And you didn't bother to mention this to me yesterday?"

"Why should both of us worry all night? There's nothing you could have done to prepare for this, you must simply go and meet her."

"And she will judge me based on what? There must be something you can tell me, something that has happened before that can give me some guidance." Nikola was getting worried; he'd never encountered a truly ancient vampire, but from what he'd read, vampires gained power as they aged. Past a certain point they were almost a different species.

"She has killed without warning, and without explanation. Do not think that because she gave me her blood that I am an example of anything. It was a matter of convenience in a difficult time, and she used me as not much more than a servant for centuries. I am still her servant in some ways, this estate comes from her wealth and I am only the administrator. But she has grown fond of me over the years, advises me and supports me in many ways. I will introduce you, but then you must face her on your own. My only advice is to be honest, do not try to fool her, she can spot a lie easily."

Nikola's stomach was doing flip flops. "When do I meet her?"

"She expects us some time this morning, so now will do." Rene stood up and so did Nikola, but Rene held out a hand and stopped him. Rene looked him over carefully and Nikola wondered if passing Rene's inspection would help him survive Mother's.

"By the way, what is her name?"

"If she wants to know you, she will give you her name, or at least what she will allow you to call her by. If not, you have no need to know." Rene's gaze lingered a moment on Nikola's hair, which was no longer the sculptured masterpiece it had been the day before but apparently still passed muster.

Rene nodded and led Nikola through the mansion to a far wing with only one carved wooden door as an entrance. Nikola had time to notice a small part of the carving as they went through, wolves snapping at raptors diving at them. The work was beautifully done, but the subject matter disturbed him, although he wasn't sure why.

The halls beyond were utterly silent. Nikola saw one or two vampire servants, but they moved with great care and made no noise. He liked quiet, but the total silence was creepy. Rene moved quietly, but not quite silently, and Nikola did his best to copy him but to his own ears the soft whisper of his steps sounded clumsily noisy.

They turned through an archway into a large room with a female vampire sitting at a desk. She was beautiful in an ageless way, dressed in a long dark gray robe with her hair tucked up into a matching gray cloche. She rose when they entered, and she and Rene nodded to each other. She turned and went gracefully to a closed, plain wooden door and placed her fingertips on it.

After a moment she opened the door and went through, closing it silently behind her. Nikola had sensed nothing, no signal of any kind to tell her to enter. He waited with Rene, standing still and relaxed. Nikola refused to let himself fidget; he was blood descended from a queen, he was not going to act like a schoolboy waiting to see the Head Master for some transgression.

It seemed like a very long time to Nikola, but objectively he knew it was no more than ten minutes before she returned, nodded once, and resumed her seat, leaving the door behind her open. Rene led Nikola forward.

The room beyond was a small sitting room, sparsely furnished and undecorated. The only bright color was a worn, mostly red oriental carpet covering most of the floor. The lighting was soft, but Nikola couldn't see an obvious source. A large, well-padded gray armchair with a small wooden table to one side faced two plain wooden chairs. Nikola noticed the seats of the wooden chairs were lower than the large chair, and the legs on the wooden chairs were very slightly shorter in front than in back so the seats slanted a little_. A throne room of sorts_ he thought, _and the supplicants are not to be made comfortable_.

The woman seated in the large chair did not rise or even look up at them from the scroll she held in her lap, so Nikola had time to study her while he and Rene stood respectfully waiting for her attention. She wore a long, loose pale blue dress over her thin frame; her feet were not visible beneath the hem. Her dark gray hair was piled impressively on top of her head, and Nikola thought it might well reach the floor when unpinned. He judged her height to be close to his own, possibly a little less so she wasn't overly tall for a vampire. Her face was thin and she looked to be no older than a forty-year-old human.

Eventually she looked up and Rene bowed. Nikola copied him exactly. "Mother, this is Nikola Tesla, also known as Teslat."

She flicked a finger at Rene, and he bowed and left, closing the door softly behind him. Nikola saw that her claws were shorter than his own, and had been painted with what appeared to be red nail polish. She crooked a finger at Nikola and he approached her. She pointed to the floor. He hesitated a moment, not sure what she wanted, but then it came to him and he knelt there and tilted his head slightly, exposing his neck. She reached out and touched his throat with an incredibly sharp claw.

He felt it penetrate, but it was little different from a hypodermic and caused no appreciable pain. She withdrew a bead of his blood and put it in her mouth. She sat with her eyes unfocused for a few moments. Nikola waited where he was.

Then her eyes focused on him, and she gestured to the wooden chairs. Nikola got up, went over and flipped one of the chairs around backwards. He straddled it, crossed his arms on the back of the chair in front of him and just looked at her. It was the only way he could think of to sit comfortably in the thing.

She stared at him for a moment, then gave him a faint smile. Finally she spoke in a low voice. "You are very young to be so bold."

Nikola realized he had been given no instruction in proper etiquette with her, how was he supposed to address her? Well, simple respect would have to do. He was nervous, but he kept his voice steady. "Ma'am, I have never gained anything through timidity."

She didn't seem disturbed at being addressed as "ma'am", and Nikola felt a little relief she hadn't sprung up and beheaded him. Maybe Rene's prep talk had him overreacting.

"You hope to gain something here?"

Nikola was just beginning to realize the possibilities of what he could gain. She knew so much, and could do so much for him; he had to suppress what he recognized as a greedy impulse.

"I would be pleased to accept whatever you would care to give me." _Like a great deal of knowledge about vampires and the vampire kingship._

"Including your death?" she asked lightly.

"That would not please me so much, no."

There was silence while they simply looked at each other. Nikola realized her eyes were the same pale blue as his own in human form. It unnerved him a little; vampire eyes always looked black, he had never seen any other appreciable color in them except for red. Her teeth were pointed, but of human length, not the long fangs he had. He wondered if she had worn them down, or if they were simply different from his own. They looked razor sharp, so perhaps they were just different. She could teach him so much if she chose.

"How did you come by Afina's blood?"

Nikola didn't want to tell her what had really happened, but he remembered Rene's advice to be completely honest. "I was injured, dying, in her antechamber. My companion discovered her and broke a hole in her chrysalis, extracted some blood and injected it into me to save me."

"Ah, that explains why her blood holds neither love nor hate; she was unaware. The ancient blood in you, how did you come by that?"

"A companion had a vial of ancient blood. Five of us made a serum from it and injected each other."

"The others became vampires?"

"No, only I did, although all of us received gifts of special abilities."

"So that was stolen too."

"I don't know how it was obtained."

She suddenly became angry. "Do not equivocate! Your vampire heritage was all stolen, was it not?"

"I . . . yes, I suppose it was. Ma'am." Nikola felt defeated. What was the punishment for becoming a vampire by theft of vampire blood- twice? He began to doubt she was going to let him walk out alive, and he was fairly sure he had no way to physically defend himself against a vampire her age. There wasn't even anything in the room that he could use his magnetic abilities on.

Then she smiled at him again. "You remind me of . . . someone. Your blood descent is false, yet your brilliance, your . . . chutzpah, is your own. You are not so unlike the Ancient Ones, Nikola, despite your stolen heritage. You are too young now, but in five or six centuries, I might have a use for you. If you survive that long, of course."

Nikola never knew why he did it, but he de-vamped and looked at her, blue eyes to blue eyes. He said earnestly "Ma'am, I will survive."

She didn't seem surprised, but she stopped smiling. "That is a useful trick. More of us would have survived if the ability to pass for human wasn't so rare. Your magnetic and rather extensive electrical abilities will likely assist you as well. But you are so alone. Perhaps you will manage to get past the First Death, perhaps not."

Nikola opened his mouth to ask what she meant, but she raised a finger and he stopped. "Call me Grandmother if you wish. In private, I will be Ana to you."

Ana was his paternal grandmother's name. How did she know, could she have read his entire family history from one drop of his blood, or was it a coincidence? He strongly doubted it was coincidence. She had so many abilities, he hoped she would be able to teach him, or was it just longevity that granted one those skills?

She crooked her finger at him again, and pointed at the same place on the floor. He got up, replaced the chair in its previous position, and knelt again. She didn't need more blood from him, did she? She apparently already knew everything about him.

But she offered him her wrist. "Feed, little one. One drop will tell you nothing, you are too young, but a mouthful may tell you much, in time."

He re-vamped and extended his feeders into her wrist, filled his mouth and swallowed. Her blood tasted young, fresh, and vibrant. There was centuries of information in it, too much for him to grasp immediately other than some ancient languages. More would come later, he was sure of it.

He found withdrawing his feeders difficult. Her body healed so thoroughly, he thought she might have held him captive if she had wished, simply by the tightness of the flesh around his thin, long feeding fangs. Finally he was able to retract them, but remained kneeling where he was. It felt right to kneel before her, no matter what his heritage was. Nikola wondered if it was her age, or if she was manipulating him somehow.

"So now what do you know of me, Nikola?"

"There are many languages from many different lands. Your true name is . . . hidden from me though. There are so many strands, I cannot sort them yet. But I can see multiple blood descendants, four, no five including Rene."

"Very good. Rene is the only survivor, so the others are not important. Perhaps, if you do survive, I will make you number six. You could potentially be most valuable."

Nikola didn't like her thinking of him as a commodity, but it was fair, he was thinking of what he could get from her, why shouldn't she be thinking of what she could get from him?

"In what way could I be valuable, Ma'am?" What did he have that she could want? The answer might be in the blood he had drunk, but it was still a jumble.

"Only now do you think of what I may take from you, which could render any dreams of what you might gain from me quite useless. You are slow, Nikola. You will not survive if you are slow."

Nikola heard the threat in her voice, and it chilled him, especially since she was right. She had seemed friendly and he had relaxed, thinking of what she could do for him, and he had ceased to be wary of her. Yet she could have killed him easily when she took his blood, and she had not. But after tasting him her opinion could have changed, and she kept mentioning his value . . . Still, she could have been lying and he had let down his guard.

"I accept the rebuke. I trusted too easily."

"It is a habit you must break. But in this case you were not wrong. You are quite safe from me for a century or two, at least until you mature. Then, Nikola Tesla, we will see. Process what I have given you and come back to me when you have gained as much as you can from it."

Nikola rose and bowed to her deeply. She gave him a faint smile and flicked her finger at him, and he left. He closed the door as softly as he could.

Rene was seated in the outer chamber, reading a scroll. He looked up as Nikola came in, rose and looked at him quizzically. "So, Mother likes you. What name did she give you to call her?"

"She told me to call her Grandmother."

Rene's eyebrows rose nearly into his hair. "My goodness, she must really like you to let you greet her as family. That is a good omen for your future Nikola . . . for our future."

Rene led him back into the main part of the house, explaining he had work to do, and that he understood Nikola most likely wanted some time alone. Nikola did, he was trying to process what he could from Grandmother's blood. He would hold it in his system as long as he could, but he couldn't suspend his digestion indefinitely. He had a day or two at most.

At parting, Rene said "I will see you later, after the final bidding on your slave. A runner will bring news, and we will either go down and pick her up or go buy her from the successful bidder."

Nikola nodded agreement. This was turning out to be a good day, and he looked forward to telling Helen everything that had happened. He went to the library, sat in a comfortable chair, closed his eyes and concentrated on Grandmother's blood.

Hours passed that seemed like only minutes. Eventually a young human man came to fetch him, saying that the messenger from the slave sale had come and the High Lord wanted to see him. Nikola came fully out of the trance-like state he had been in, and followed eagerly.

Rene was in his office looking grim when Nikola entered. He looked up and shook his head. "Bad news. My bid of 600 was too low, someone else bought Helen for 750."

"Okay, we'll just go buy her then."

"The buyer is Low Lord Andrina."

Nikola's hand groped out and found a chair, and he sat down heavily. "That's bad. But Andrina has a certain amount of greediness; we can still probably buy Helen, can't we?"

"We can try. But most likely Andrina will refuse to sell her for a month or two. She will make Helen suffer horribly until she gets bored with torturing her, then sell us what is left for an exorbitant amount."

"No. We're going to offer a fair profit, and if Andrina refuses then I'm going to take Helen away from her."

"But that's illegal, you . . . "

"Don't give me any bull about legalities; I've seen firsthand how the court can be manipulated." Nikola suddenly froze, staring at Rene.

Rene frowned at him. "What?"

"It was you, not Andrina. You are the one who railroaded me."

"That's ridiculous, I was the only 'not guilty' vote. Why would I arrange for the verdict to be the opposite of how I voted?

"So I would trust you; so I would be so desperate you could pick me up and manipulate me any way you wanted. And I fell for it." _And that is what Grandmother was trying to get me to see. Just because someone acts nice doesn't mean you can trust them._

They contemplated each other in silence for a moment. Then Rene said "It changes nothing. You want to use me to become king, and I want you to be king so I can use you. Our interests coincide, at least for now. Do you want to go get Helen or not?"

Nikola hesitated only a moment. Right now he needed Rene and his money. "We'll offer a thousand. Whether or not Andrina accepts it, we're taking Helen."

Rene quickly packed a small bag with money, and they hurried out to the sedan chair. Rene gave orders and the porters moved out smartly with two runners in front to make sure the way was clear.

/

The two big human men led Helen out of the foyer and down a long hall to a T intersection. The hall was empty except for them, and at the corner Helen moved in close to the wall as they turned left. She suddenly grabbed and pulled on the leash held by the man in front of her, and as he turned off balance she kicked him in the stomach. Then she spun and kicked the man behind her in the groin before he had gotten far enough around the corner to even realize what was happening. Both leashes now swinging free, she turned back to the man bent over in front of her and rammed his head into the wall with a loud thump.

The man behind her was still curled up on the ground, and she saw he wasn't going to be able to do anything to stop her. She stripped off the collar as she sprinted down the hall back toward the foyer.

Just before she got there, Andrina barged angrily through the door. "What is all that noise?" she barked just before Helen punched her in the nose.

Unfortunately, it didn't have the effect Helen had hoped for. It barely rocked Andrina's head back at all. Helen tried a kick to the midsection, but Andrina had recovered from her surprise and augmented her speed. She moved back just far enough for the kick to miss, and reached out and grabbed Helen's ankle in mid-air, lifting it and dumping her on the floor.

Helen tried to use her free leg to cut Andrina's legs out from under her, but again Andrina was too fast and moved out of range. Keeping her grip on Helen's ankle, she began marching back down the hallway dragging Helen twisting and struggling behind her.

"Don't make me hurt you" Andrina sang out merrily, "at least not yet."

Andrina passed the downed guards without a second look and made a sharp turn at the corner. She added some impetus to Helen's leg as she changed direction, causing her to hit the wall with a hard smack to her head. Dazed, Helen stopped struggling as Andrina dragged her into a small, nearly empty room. The only things in the room were shackles connected by chains to four large, heavy metal rings embedded in the bare rocky floor.

Andrina snapped a shackle on the bruised, swelling ankle she was holding, dropped it and quickly chained all of Helen's limbs. Then she stood back and watched as Helen groggily sat up and tested her restraints.

"There now, much better. I'll give you some time to think about your situation, and then I'll come back and we'll have a nice chat about your friend, that nasty little Teslat. Well, nice for me anyway." Andrina gave her a big smile and left, locking the door behind her.

The room had a small amount of phosphorescence in the ceiling, so it wasn't quite pitch black, but there was nothing to see. Helen tested the chains again, using all her weight and strength, but the chains were too heavy and the rings were solidly in place.

When she had been in the cell waiting to be sold she had felt sorry for Nikola, beaten and dumped somewhere, but now he was the one better off. At least he was free and not at the mercy of an angry vampire. But she couldn't expect a rescue; he didn't know where she was, and he had absolutely no resources. In time she was sure he would come for her, but it could be a very long time; for now she was on her own.

Andrina was passing through the foyer when there was a knock at the door, so she answered the door herself. She was pleased and flattered to see High Lord Dramelin had come calling on her, but then she noticed who was standing behind him.

"High Lord Dramelin, it is always a pleasure to see you, but why have you brought that insolent thieving creature here?"

Nikola gave her a big smile, but there was nothing friendly about it. He pushed past Rene into Andrina's apartment. "Andrina, we have come to buy Helen, and we won't take no for an answer."

Rene's first impulse was to keep the two of them apart and do the negotiating for Helen himself, but then he thought better of it. If Nikola was going to be king, it might be better to see what he could do by himself. Rene came into the apartment and closed the door behind him, but said nothing.

Andrina looked to Rene, expecting him to take the lead, but it was Nikola who spoke. "We are offering a thousand for Helen. That is a 33 per cent profit on a slave you have owned less than a day; more than fair, generous even."

"She is not for sale. Lord Dramelin, you are welcome to stay, of course, but I will not have this bottom Three scum in my home." She turned directly to Nikola. "Get out Teslat, or I will have you put out."

Nikola tossed the bag of coins on the table under the mirror. He spun and slammed Andrina up against the wall, his hand around her neck, too fast for her to react.

He spoke very softly in her ear. "You are going to take me to Helen or I will rip your head off and my good friend High Lord Dramelin will swear it was self-defense. The same goes for any of your slaves that try to stop me."

Andrina looked at the angry red in his eyes and believed him. Her eyes shifted to Dramelin, but he just stood where he was and made no move to help her. She didn't understand what kind of game he was playing, but he was a High Lord and she a Low Lord, so for the moment she would go along. She gestured at a door, and Nikola pulled her away from the wall and marched her to it, his hand holding her neck from behind with his claws nearly meeting in the front.

They went down the hall with Rene lagging behind. Her two slaves had gotten to their feet, but without instructions from her, they just stood there and watched the three vampires walk past them.

Andrina produced a key ring and unlocked the door to Helen's cell. Nikola took his hand from her neck and plucked her entire key ring from her hand as he did and went into the cell.

Andrina hissed "You won't get away with this. High Lord Dramelin, why are you permitting this? You are in charge of keeping the laws, you know this isn't right!"

Dramelin smiled at her pityingly. "Poor Andrina, you see but you do not see. Did you really think Teslat's arrest and trial was just to please you? Think about this. His claim in the courtroom to carry royal blood is true."

The look of relief and joy on Helen's face when Nikola entered her cell were all he could have hoped for. He knelt and found the key to her shackles and unlocked them one by one, being very careful with her injured ankle.

"I'm sorry I didn't have time to stop and pick up some roses, but I thought you would prefer to be whisked off to my enchanted castle right away" he murmured as he worked.

"You're a little late, and no roses to boot. You're slipping, Nikola."

Helen stood up and Nikola tenderly kissed the growing bruise on her cheek where she'd hit the wall. "Better?"

"Actually, a little, yes. Let's get out of here, shall we?" Helen stumbled as she tried to walk, and Nikola just picked her up and carried her, followed by Andrina and Dramelin.

He walked briskly down the hall toward the foyer. Helen was a little surprised at how secure she felt in his arms. She had known intellectually that he was stronger than he looked, and now she found herself relaxing and enjoying the ride. She fingered the lapel of his jacket and murmured "Nice suit. Where did you get it?"

"My elves made it. I'm sure they'll make something wonderful for you too, if you're nice to me."

Helen said loudly to Andrina "I want my knapsack back."

"I dropped the filthy thing in the foyer. Please take it with you, and I do hope I will never see either of you again."

They reached the foyer and Dramelin handed Helen her knapsack. Nikola carried Helen out the front door, but Andrina stopped High Lord Dramelin. "High Lord, why are you siding with him? I thought you and I had an understanding. . . "

"You thought wrong. There is change coming, Low Lord Andrina. Accept it, or you will not survive it." Rene turned his back on her and left her gaping in her doorway.

Nikola carried Helen to the waiting sedan chair, but hesitated. "Rene, can your team carry all of us?"

"The weight, certainly but there are only two seats."

"Not a problem." Nikola climbed in, still holding Helen, and settled her on his lap while Rene took the opposite seat. They closed the curtains and the team started off.

Helen found Nikola's lap more comfortable than she had expected; not bony at all. She asked doubtfully "So now you have an enchanted castle and elves?"

Mindful of Rene's presence, Nikola said "They really belong to Grandmother, but she likes me. I'll explain once we get you settled."

Rene spoke up "I'm sorry, Nikola, but you do have one other duty to perform. The bar is opening tonight, and you need to be there."

Nikola frowned. He had planned on spending time with Helen, and then returning to his near trance to continue to work out what he could from Grandmother's blood. "Why do I need to be there?" he asked a little petulantly.

"I have invited the other High Lords and their families to the opening, and explained who you are. They are very interested in meeting you. The Most High Lord will not be attending so this is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss."

Nikola nodded reluctantly. "Sorry Helen, duty calls."

Helen asked Rene curiously "Precisely who did you tell the High Lords he is?"

"Royalty, of course. If all goes well tonight, in a few days he may be our new king."

Helen glanced at Nikola for confirmation, who just smiled at her uncertainly. Beyond that she stifled her response, waiting for them to be alone.

When they reached the estate, a gaggle of servants met them at the door. Nikola carried Helen directly to his suite, but servants were waiting to open the door for him when he got there, and others had a wheelchair and ice for Helen's ankle. Nikola put her in the chair, and three female servants took her over.

Andre was waiting for him too. "Master Teslat, your evening dress needs a final fitting, and we have only a few hours for the adjustments. If you could . . . ?"

Nikola sighed and changed into the costume Andre had for him. It wasn't too different from black tie evening wear from the surface of seventy or eighty years earlier. When Andre had finished with him he re-dressed and went to look for Helen.

He was a little disappointed to find her already bathed and propped up in the middle of his huge bed wearing a frilly pink nightie. It didn't really suit her personality, but she did look incredibly delicious in it, like an elaborate birthday cake. Nikola took off his shoes and sat cross-legged on the bed facing her.

"How's your ankle?"

"It will be fine by morning, I'm sure. You'd better start explaining."

"Okay, here goes. High Lord Dramelin, AKA Rene Drambaud, was the one who engineered my arrest and trial so I would be dependent on him and grateful to him."

Helen started to speak, but Nikola held up a hand and said "Please hold your questions until the end. He wants me to be king to increase his influence; he doesn't have royal blood so he can't do it himself. This estate actually belongs to a very old vampire he calls Mother; he is her blood descendent. I met her, she likes me I think, and she allows me to call her Grandmother."

He pointed his finger at Helen. "Do not go anywhere near her. She is incredibly powerful, and from what Rene has told me, she can be capricious. All her servants are vampires, you would not be welcome."

Helen neither agreed nor disagreed, which Nikola found worrisome.

"Rene bought back everything we owned before the court confiscated it, so the bar is mine again."

"And you're planning on becoming the king of the vampires." Helen didn't sound very happy about it.

"I'm planning on doing whatever it takes to transform this society. You promised to neck with me if I did, remember?"

That made her smile a bit. "I remember. What do you have to do to become king?"

"I don't know yet, other than go schmooze with the High Lords. Rene and I are due for a serious sit-down, but we just haven't had time. Oh, FYI, Grandmother drank a drop of my blood and gave me a drink of hers. I need to spend as much time as I can in the next day or so learning all I can from it."

"So you're going to be meditating or something, and then going to a party tonight. What am I supposed to do?"

"Andre and his elves will want to make clothes for you, and if you like old books- and I know you do- this place has a stupendous library. The walkie-talkie should be around here somewhere too. Anything you need, just ask the servants."

Helen looked at him seriously. "All right, Nikola, for now. Go do what you need to do. But tomorrow, I will be included in your discussions with Rene, and we will come up with a plan together."

"Absolutely." Nikola crawled over the bed to her, gave her a peck on the cheek, and retreated to the edge to put on his shoes. "This place will be full of Andre and his tailor gang soon; I'm going to find somewhere quieter. I suppose I'll be late tonight, don't be startled when I get into bed later."

"Considering the size of this thing, I may not even notice. Just don't come home drunk, I'm in no shape to shove you into the shower."

"Hey, I'm only going because it's my duty."

"Riiiight."

Nikola used one of the smaller bedrooms in his suite, flopping on the bed and concentrating on Grandmother's blood. So far he had gotten little besides languages, mostly snippets from her extensive travels. The "First Death" reference intrigued him, and he went searching for information on it with some success. But soon he was roused to dress for the bar opening.

He put on his tuxedo and went out the front door to the waiting sedan chair. It was a different one, very fancy in black with silver trim, and the four chairmen were new as well and dressed to match. He went back into his semi-trance for the ride, but came out of it as they approached the bar, roused by the noise.

Rene met him as he descended from the chair, and bowed deeply. Nikola took on his king-to-be role, and nodded casually back. Together they went into the brightly lit, very crowded bar. Nikola could hear some music in the background, but didn't recognize whatever was being played. The waiters were all vampires, and he thought he recognized some of them from the estate.

Rene escorted him to the bar where Nikola selected a bottle of the best of the white wines, and then they went to an unoccupied table covered in a white tablecloth. All the other tables were covered with red tablecloths and were crowded. Nikola could see the covert glances he was getting, but ignored them.

Rene had selected a glass of red wine for himself, and they drank a little by themselves. Then Rene excused himself, and began bringing over a selection of people to meet Nikola. He introduced them in ones and twos, High Lords all. He referred to Nikola just as "Lord Teslat", with neither a "High" nor a "Low" in front of it. Only two of those he introduced were invited to sit, High Lord Bibbikan who was in charge of the Guard, and High Lord Amorra who managed the Treasury.

Nikola played his part, being partly genial host, but mostly condescending to those who were made to stand for their brief moment with him. He asked them one or two questions, and said insincerely he was pleased they could come. Nikola recognized that support of the Guard and the Treasury was critical to his successful take over, so he was much friendlier to those two High Lords, spending ten or fifteen minutes with each.

He was pleased to see the bar had both starotsrvena and damureg but he stayed away from them. It was critical that he project the right image, and getting drunk was definitely not part of it. Some of the other patrons were indulging though, and the noise level continued to rise. But no one ventured into the space around his table unless invited.

All in all, he found it both annoying and boring. He had never enjoyed social gatherings unless he could get some stimulating conversation, and there was none of that tonight. He also had to drink some of the imported blood to show his support for it, but he didn't care much for farm animal blood. He drank a small glass of pig blood, it was at least a little better than the cow blood, which he detested. They had already run out of sheep blood, and were down to the dregs on the horse blood.

Nikola was relieved when Rene suggested he leave after only three hours; he was more than ready. The party was still in full swing, but all those who were to be honored by being introduced had been, and it should appear his time was extremely valuable.

Rene escorted him to the door. The black and silver sedan chair was waiting, and Nikola climbed in while Rene bowed and exclaimed loudly how honored they all had been by his presence. Nikola granted him a small nod before he drew the curtain closed.

He used the time during the ride as he had before, but it was late and he was actually tired by the time they reached the estate. He trudged to his suite, and found just one small light on in his bedroom, and the curtains around the bed were drawn shut.

The walkie-talkie lay on the table next to the lamp with a note on it in Helen's handwriting stating that she hadn't been able to get anything but static on it. There was a pile of books from the library on the table too. He peeked in through the curtains and found Helen asleep.

He stripped off his fancy clothes, turned off the small lamp and climbed in with her, doing his best not to wake her. He didn't want to have a conversation tonight, tomorrow would be soon enough. He understood what the First Death was now, and the Second Death as well, and didn't look forward to explaining them to her. After all, she was a little bit vampire too.


	14. Chapter 14 Life and Death

Helen woke with a start. There was someone in the room outside the bed curtains. She rotated her injured ankle; would she be able to fight? Her ankle felt much better, and she tensed to spring out of bed. Then she heard a drawer open.

She looked over at Nikola. He was awake and staring at the ceiling, but felt her eyes on him and turned his head toward her.

"Elves, filling the drawers and closets with clothes for you" he explained. He rolled over, stuck his head through the bed curtain and said "Shoo. Come back later."

Helen heard murmured apologies, the bedroom door opened and then closed quietly. She looked over at Nikola, and he nodded and said "Yeah, we need a lock for that door."

"How was your party last night?"

"Awful. I played King Snob for hours, drank pig blood, and came home. The only good thing about it was the wine. I really missed wine."

"Oh poor Nikola, you actually had to go without wine for what- a week and a half? I see you survived."

"Just barely." Nikola turned serious. "Helen, you know I've been working on figuring out what I could from Grandmother's blood. I've come across something you need to know about. I don't know if it will affect you or not, but it's a vampire thing, and you're minimally qualified."

Helen grabbed several pillows scattered around the huge bed and stuffed them behind herself, propping herself into a comfortable sitting position. "All right, I'm ready, tell me all."

"When humans kicked out their vampire rulers and took over, they did it mostly by sheer overwhelming numbers."

"That's not new, I already was aware of that."

"Did you ever consider how that was even possible? Vampires live forever except for the few that die through extreme trauma. How could short-lived humans outnumber them by such a huge amount?"

"I don't know, I suppose I just assumed a low rate of procreation among the vampires."

"Vampire procreation rates are just as widely variable as human rates. Some have one or two kids a century, others churn out a houseful every twenty or thirty years. That's not it. The truth is immortal vampires can die."

"Yes, extreme trauma."

"No, they can just die. They . . . we go through stages, kind of like humans and their mid-life crises or the seven year itch. There's the First Death and the Second Death. There may be a Third Death, but if there is, Grandmother hasn't reached it yet."

Helen looked at Nikola. He had shifted around while he was talking and was now sprawled on his stomach, propped up on his elbows, twiddling his fingers and not looking at her at all. Helen knew he was worried, maybe even scared about what he was talking about.

"How can that be, vampires don't really age or get sick."

"It's a mental thing. The First Death usually happens around age three hundred, and I think the root cause is isolation. As you get older, it gets harder to change, to keep up with change, but the world doesn't stop changing. You might keep up in one area that interests you, but your friends don't, they have their own interests, and they fall behind too, but at different rates, in different areas, and you grow apart."

"A person can make new friends."

"Everyone you know is off in a different place, and the younger vampires are all up with the latest tech, the latest culture, or at least a different level of tech and culture than where you are, and the same thing going the other way. The older vampires like the music, and clothes, and language of centuries before your time."

"A vampire can learn the new tech, the new music, and we know language updates are easy."

"And some do, and they get past it. But some don't. They get lonely, depressed, morose, and start withdrawing, sitting in a dark room, lying in a coffin in the basement. It's the root of the classical vampire in literature. The vampire sits around until really hungry, goes out and attacks humans carelessly, dresses in old fashioned clothing, wanders around graveyards visiting past friends and relations, occasionally going to an opera or performance of something they knew when they were young, that sort of thing."

"And how does this kill them?"

"They stop wanting to live. They stop feeding, or feed so violently that they commit 'death by humans'. They despair and just lie down and die, commit violent suicide, or just walk away and nobody ever sees them again."

"That's terrible, but I can't see that happening to either of us."

"Not you. You're engaged with the world, and you've had friends all along."

"I've felt isolated at times, Nikola. People like Will and Henry have a totally different perspective on everything."

"Yeah, but you've had your father for a long time, and he may even still be alive, who knows? And you had James until recently and John popped in on and off. And some of your Abnormal friends have long lives, like Big Guy who's been with you for over sixty years."

There was a silence. Helen wasn't going to say it first, but finally Nikola did.

"I've had problems along those lines, being alone too much. The last decades of my 'life' I worked alone and lived alone, and rarely went out, except for the clandestine work I did during the war. After I 'died', I couldn't see you, or James, or even John, not that I really wanted to see John, but it would have been nice to talk to someone who understood."

Helen waited; he had more to say, and if she spoke he might never say it.

"I got a little . . . off balance, really lost perspective. I was manufacturing zombie vampire friends for myself. That was kind of crazy, and I even threatened you down in the catacombs. I'm sorry about that Helen; you know I wouldn't have actually hurt you."

Helen reached over and took one of his hands in hers, stilling both his hands and causing him to look at her finally. "It's okay Nikola, I know you wouldn't. I forgave you long ago for the scare you gave me."

Nikola nodded and looked down again, but kept a firm grasp on her hand.

"I'm only 156, and I've already come close to losing my mind once. I still usually work alone, I ignore a lot of what's going on in the world, and I can't say I want to get involved with ephemeral humans. I don't think I'm going to make it through the First Death."

At least now it was out in the open. Helen slid off her pile of pillows and put her head close to his.

"Yes you will. You're at the Sanctuary, and you and I will see each other all the time. And Henry, Will, Kate, Big Guy, the Abnormals, and everyone will keep you in touch with the world, even about things you really don't care for. You are not alone Nikola, and you won't be."

Nikola gave her a little half-hearted smile.

"And maybe you're already past it. You always were precocious."

That got a bigger smile. She could see he didn't believe it, but at least he was feeling better about his chances of making it past the First Death. Time to change the topic.

"So tell me about the Second Death."

Nikola sighed and Helen could see him shifting mental gears.

"The Second Death comes much later, around maybe seven hundred to a thousand. The results are similar to the First Death, but it's caused by a loss of purpose. Professions change over centuries, a lot of them go away entirely and there's not always a new one that's similar. Someone who dedicates themselves to a goal, and then has that goal fade away or disappear entirely can't always just reinvent themselves."

"Give me an example."

"Pretty much everything. There aren't many professions I can think of that haven't changed radically in even the last five hundred years; art maybe, or playing a musical instrument, although even instruments have changed. Think about a farmer in the Middle Ages compared to a farmer now, or a doctor."

"I've kept up my medical skills."

"Yes, and maybe that's something you'll have to fall back on."

"What do you mean?"

"The Second Death isn't something I'm afraid of for me. I'm a scientist, and I don't just keep up with science, I lead it. I invent new things and that will always be a necessary profession. But I worry about you. What are you going to do when the Sanctuary is no longer necessary?"

Helen looked confused. "It will always be necessary."

"Come on Helen, that's not true. Eventually humanity is going to recognize the existence of Abnormals and take direct action. SCIU already exists, there is already clandestine action going on. Centuries from now intelligent Abnormals will either be wiped out or accepted as people. Non-intelligent Abnormals will just be rare animals in zoos or animal preserves. Do you become a doctor specializing in Abnormal medicine? A veterinarian? I can't see either of those being a challenge for you when you're seven or eight hundred years old or more."

"If you are right, and at some point the Sanctuary is no longer necessary, I'm quite sure I will find some way to use my talents. I don't have to decide this morning, do I?"

"No, you don't. But if it gets to that point, just know that I'll be around and make sure you find something amazing and difficult and important to devote yourself to. Okay?"

"Okay. Can we get out of bed now?"

"We could, or we could stay in bed and make wild monkey love."

"Nikola! We have to meet with Rene and I intend to shower, try on at least a dozen of my new outfits, and have a big breakfast first. So move it buster."

Nikola sighed theatrically, got out of bed and headed for the shower while Helen explored the drawers and closets with her new clothes. When they were both showered and dressed in clothes that fit precisely and would have cost thousands on the surface, they went into the large sitting room where servants waited for them.

Nikola sent one for breakfast for Helen and another to check on Rene's schedule to set up a meeting. Several of the tailoring gang waited for her with new shoes for her to try on, and more of them took additional clothing for both of them into the bedroom.

Rene was available, so as soon as Helen had eaten they went to meet with him in his office. If he was surprised that Helen accompanied Nikola, he didn't show it but gestured both of them to comfortable chairs.

"It went well last night" he began. "Half the High Lords are speaking very highly of you, and another third found you acceptable. A few think you are too young to rule wisely, but I assured them that you would listen to the advice of your elders, and any changes would be approved by your Council."

Nikola just gave a noncommittal "Hmm." He would listen to the Council, whoever they were, but he had his own agenda.

Rene continued "The bar will need restocking, of course, can you arrange that by next Nineday? I plan to be open only on Nineday evening at first, until we have a more steady supply of drinks; if that meets your approval of course."

Nikola nodded and turned to Helen. "Can you take care of that? There is access to the surface directly from the estate, if you get outside you should be able to reach Saretu on the walkie-talkie."

Helen looked puzzled, but nodded. "Just give me a list of what we need."

Nikola faced her but watched Rene with his peripheral vision. "I learned a great deal from Grandmother's blood, including the extent and features of her estate. Did you know that the humans here are not really slaves? They think of themselves that way, but they are paid a salary, can choose and train for a particular job, have the right to marry whom they please and have a family, and can go to the surface for a visit or permanently as they please."

Helen smiled. "That's a good start." She understood now where Nikola was getting his information, and the fact that the servants here seemed so willing and enthusiastic suddenly made much more sense.

Rene was frowning and looking uncertain. Nikola wanted him off balance, he was more likely to get the truth if Rene didn't know how much he knew. And he still had a little of Grandmother's blood in suspension, he might be able to double-check any suspicious statements Rene made.

"What about the Most High Lord? Is he aware of what is going on?" Nikola asked Rene.

"By now, most assuredly. His adherents will have run and told him everything last night. He will be looking for you today. We will make it easy for him to find you. We can likely save you the trip to the surface and go to the bar instead; if your communication device worked from your old residence, it should work from the bar as well. There is a separate market for the High Lords, perhaps after a stop at the bar we will go shopping and see what happens.

"What do you expect to happen?" Helen asked.

"I expect the Most High Lord will find us, and challenge Lord Nikola to a duel. I expect Lord Nikola will win and take control of the government."

"And if Nikola loses?"

"Then you are welcome to stay here on the estate or return to the surface as you will."

"And Nikola?"

Nikola answered. "Most duels between vampires are to first blood. This duel would be to the death; rather messy considering how hard vampires are to kill. You can stay at the bar and order supplies while we go to the market."

Helen looked horrified. "I am not going to let you go alone, I'm going with you" she insisted.

Nikola shook his head. "You wouldn't be allowed in the High Lord's market."

Rene said "Actually she could come as your slave. And the duel won't take place in the market itself."

Nikola glared at him. He absolutely did not want Helen to see him dueling to the death with a full vampire much larger than himself. Win or lose, it was going to be nasty. But Rene had just destroyed the only excuse he could think of to keep Helen out of the way.

"Fine. But you do exactly as I say. You cannot interfere, no matter what. You would be put to death instantly, whether I won or lost. Agreed?"

Helen said tersely "Yes. No interference. Got it."

Nikola addressed Rene. "Assuming I win, how do I take control?"

"You will call an emergency meeting of the Council. I will take care of that for you. Then you run the session and establish your authority. As long as this is done within a few hours of your victory, that will suffice."

"I may not be in very good shape."

"It will take several hours for the Council to convene, but if you are not fully healed that is irrelevant. If you do not take charge of the Council, some other member will likely try to fill the power vacuum."

"Like you?"

"No. I have enough to do managing the estate, being the Council member for Law, and catering to Mother." Rene smiled a little. "Besides, Mother prefers you for the job, she is a stickler for form and you're the only Royal we have."

Helen spoke up. "Could I meet her?"

Rene stopped smiling. "She doesn't normally meet humans."

"I would like Helen to meet Grandmother" Nikola said. "How do I arrange a meeting?"

"She is generally in, go talk to her handmaiden."

Nikola and Helen arranged to meet Rene after lunch for the trip to the main cavern, and left his office. As soon as they were out in the hall Helen asked "Why do you suddenly want me to meet Grandmother? Last night you warned me away from her."

"It could be a little dangerous, but I think you'll be all right if I'm with you. Grandmother would be a valuable ally for you if I don't survive the duel."

Helen looked at Nikola with concern. "You're going to survive, Nikola. You're going to win, you have to."

"That's the plan, but I'm sure you've noticed my plans haven't been going so well lately."

They stopped in front of the carved wooden door at the entrance to Grandmother's wing. Nikola's interest in it made Helen look at it closely. There were numerous animals depicted on it, all of them in the process of attacking or being attacked by other animals. The artistry was superb, but Nikola could only frown and shake his head when he looked at it.

Helen commented "Apparently the artist is saying it's a dog eat dog world."

"I suppose, but the world isn't like that. Animals kill to eat or defend themselves, they don't slaughter everything in sight. Neither do people."

"The ancient vampires were pretty violent."

"They're not now. If this is supposed to represent vampire relationships, it's way out of date, a relic. If it were my relic, I'd burn it. From here on we need to be silent. Walk quietly, don't speak until spoken to, be respectful, and don't call her Grandmother unless she gives you permission."

Helen nodded and they passed through the door, went down the deserted hall and turned through the archway. The vampire in dark gray was standing in front of a bookcase leafing through an old book. She nodded to Nikola and raised an eyebrow toward Helen.

Nikola wasn't sure of the protocol, but he said quietly "We'd like to see Grandmother if we could."

The vampire put down her book and went to the door, placing her fingertips on it as she had before. She waited without moving for at least two minutes. Nikola was starting to think they had made a mistake in coming here without advance notice when she finally opened the door and went inside, closing the door silently behind her.

In less than five minutes she returned, leaving the door open as she had before. Nikola led Helen into the room beyond, and closed the door behind him as quietly as he could.

Grandmother was seated in her usual chair, but in front of her were two gray padded chairs similar to her own instead of the wooden ones. She was sipping something from a delicate porcelain cup and nodded to them.

Nikola stepped forward and bowed, and Helen copied him.

"Good morning, Grandmother, I hope we are not disturbing you."

"You bring a human here, that is disturbing."

"This is Helen Magnus. She's not quite human. In fact she's older than I am."

Helen shot him a peeved look, and Nikola winced. He knew it wasn't wise to mention a woman's age, but in this case it was important.

Grandmother indicated with a lift of her chin that Nikola was to sit. She crooked her finger at Helen and pointed to the floor besides her chair.

Helen walked over and stood in the spot indicated. No one moved. She looked over at Nikola questioningly. He used two fingers of his hand to make a kneeling motion on his thigh, and moved his eyes down to where she would be if kneeling. Helen kneeled.

Grandmother reached out her hand toward Helen's neck, and Nikola suddenly spoke. "Grandmother, she doesn't have the gift of healing. She is human in that respect."

Grandmother gave him a peeved look and Nikola winced again. He would much rather be doing almost anything else than be in the same room with two older, powerful women.

Grandmother said "Give me your hand."

Helen complied and Grandmother took it in her own, raised it to her mouth and released it all in one motion. Helen had felt the prick in her finger, but it had happened so fast she hadn't had time to react at all.

Grandmother sat thoughtfully for a few seconds, then gestured Helen to the other chair.

"You have the stolen ancient blood as well. But you remain far more human than vampire. Where did you get the blood?"

"My father acquired it and gave it to me. But it was my decision to use it, to create a serum from it and inject it into myself and four of my colleagues."

"Why did you do this?"

"Scientific inquiry. At that time it was the only way to determine the qualities inherent in the blood."

"You were curious. And why are you here? More curiosity?"

"Partly, but mostly because I seek an ally. I believe that slavery is wrong and this society must be changed to free the humans."

"Change takes power."

Nikola spoke. "Rene thinks I should duel the Most High Lord and take over as king."

"Do you wish to be king?"

Nikola glanced at Helen, who was looking at him intently. "I need to be king to achieve the necessary transformation."

"Because your Helen wishes it?"

"Because it's right."

"Why come to me? I can neither give you the power you seek nor change anything for you."

"I don't expect you to. But if I duel and win, I am dependent on Rene to call the Council together so I can establish control, and I'm not sure I can trust him. If I duel and lose, Helen has no status here and cannot effect any change on her own."

Grandmother sat silently regarding him. After a few moments she said to Helen "You may call me Grandmother as well. Go now, I will speak to Nikola alone."

Helen looked at Nikola who nodded. She rose and left.

Grandmother looked intently at Nikola. "If you need to be king, then go be king."

"But Ana . . ." Nikola began.

"No 'but' little prince. There will be death today, and life, and there will be change because I do not like this slavery either. Rene will not betray you. He is my blood descendent and obeys me, although not always precisely as I wish. I have seen what is within you. Go be king. That is all."

Nikola rose and bowed. He left as quietly as he could and joined Helen in the outer office. Together they walked back to the main part of the house, Nikola relating what Grandmother had said to him after Helen was dismissed.

"Do you have any idea what she meant?" Helen asked.

Nikola replied "You know as much as I do. Go have lunch and we'll take the walkie-talkie to the bar and order more blood and wine."

After lunch they joined Rene on the front steps. Both sedan chairs waited for them. Rene rode in his usual chair, and Nikola and Helen rode in the black and silver one.

When they reached the bar, Rene produced two keys and gave one to Nikola and used the second to unlock the door. The bar was empty, but had been thoroughly cleaned. The tablecloths had been removed and the chairs were sitting upside down on the tables.

Helen tried the walkie-talkie but was surprised by the voice that answered.

"Hi Doc, we were getting worried about you" Henry said.

"Henry what are you doing back? I thought you and Will went home to the Sanctuary" Helen replied.

"We were kinda going nuts back there, and everything's pretty quiet anyway. When Jerry said you were out of touch we just hopped on the plane and here we are."

"Nikola and I are staying at an estate that's out of range. But I'm told there is an entrance to the surface on the estate, so once we establish where that is on the surface you may need to move our base of operations. Meanwhile, do you have a pen and paper? I have the re-order for the bar."

Rene and Nikola looked at the stocks still available and quickly determined what was needed for replacement, and Helen relayed the information to Henry. Then Will's voice replaced his.

"Hey how long do you think this is going to go on? You guys can't stay down there forever."

Helen and Nikola's eyes met. "Not much longer" she said. "A few days perhaps, and then we may be able to take a break. But Will, this is going to be a long term project and Sanctuary personnel are going to have to support it for quite a while, perhaps even years."

"Sanctuary personnel, sure, but not you personally."

"Not me personally, but Nikola and I will likely need to revisit periodically. We'll talk about it in more detail later when we know more."

"All right. When do you need all this stuff?"

"A week should be fine. You should know that there is someone here we're working with, his name is Rene Drambaud. We're staying at his mother's estate, so if we're out of touch for a day or two don't be concerned."

"Come on Magnus, you're living in the middle of a bunch of vampires, how can I not be concerned?"

"Just round up the supplies and hold your position until we contact you again. Magnus out."

"Time to head to the market?" asked Rene.

"Yes" replied Nikola. They filed out of the bar and locked up. As soon as they emerged, a slim young vampire who had been standing idly by suddenly turned and ran off.

"We may not need to walk that far" observed Rene.

As they walked across the main cavern, the Most High Lord and his retinue emerged from a side tunnel and moved toward the dais. Nikola lengthened his stride and arrived at the raised platform at the same time.

Nikola stepped up on the dais at the same time as did the Most High Lord; they stood nose to nose- sort of, Nikola's nose was at the level of the base of his Lordship's neck.

"You little mongrel pup, how dare you claim to rule here?" His Lordship spoke loudly and angrily, so everyone could hear him. Other vampires turned from their business and hurried toward the group, and humans slowed down and lingered nearby.

Nikola spoke loudly as well. "I am the only living blood descendent of Queen Afina. You acknowledged that yourself only a few days ago. You, however, are the descendent of a second-rate courtier. If you are a Ten, that makes me a Fifteen!"

"You cannot rule. You are half human and no one with the human taint has ever ruled vampires."

"That's true, because before now there have always been pure blood vampires that took precedence. But now I alone carry royal blood; the rest of my heritage means nothing compared to that."

The cavern was filling rapidly. A half dozen guards pushed their way to the front of the growing crowd to hold it back from the two men on the dais.

His Most High Lordship knew he was losing the argument, and that there were High Lords ready to support Nikola. "Then there is only one way to settle this. I challenge you to a duel!"

Nikola looked down and spotted Helen's face in the crowd. She was very pale and shook her head slightly. She was afraid for him and she didn't want him to do it. He ignored her, this was the only path to accomplish what he must.

"I accept" he said calmly. "Since I am the one challenged, I get my choice of weapons."

The Most High Lord looked confused. "You want to use weapons? How human of you" he sneered.

Nikola ignored the jibe. "It's my choice. I choose those" he said, pointing to the long knife on a guard's belt. "You get the choice of time and place."

"I have had enough of your pretension. I will kill you here and now."

Nikola stepped down off of the dais and put out his hand; the nearest guard handed him a knife with a long, slim, very sharp twelve inch blade. Most High Lord stepped down and took a similar knife, examining it and shrugging.

More guards joined the first few and pushed the crowd back to give the two men room. Nikola and His Lordship circled each other warily, feinting, trying to get the other's measure.

His Lordship struck out with his claws, too fast for Helen to see more than a blur. Nikola dodged back, but too slowly and two bloody gashes appeared on his face which immediately healed. His Lordship struck again with his claws, but this time only tore the shoulder of Nikola's suit jacket.

The third time His Lordship attacked, Nikola avoided him and counterattacked, but his swipe with his knife missed entirely. The Most High Lord suddenly seemed to notice the knife in his hand. The next time he augmented his speed and struck at Nikola, he used both claws and knife. Nikola didn't move away, he moved forward, inside the strike. His Lordship's claws scored Nikola's back and both of them struck with their knives.

Nikola was stabbed in the chest while his knife went deep into his opponent's guts. Nikola twisted aside and the knife embedded between his ribs was wrenched out of His Lordship's hand. Nikola used one hand to hold his own knife in his opponent and the other to pull the knife out of his chest with a gush of blood. Meanwhile, the Most High Lord was clawing him wildly.

His Lordship cared nothing about the knives, he had always fought with his claws and fangs and did so now. Nikola stayed in close and took the punishment, brought the second knife around to his Lordship's back and plunged it in opposite to the first knife while the Most High Lord tore at his head, shoulders and back.

Bleeding badly, Nikola staggered back. His Lordship grinned in triumph and tried to pull the knife out of his stomach. It didn't budge. He looked down and stopped smiling. The two blades were locked together magnetically and the attempt to pull one out embedded the other more deeply. The blades moved together more tightly, and one started to move sideways, circling through the Most High Lord's body faster than he could heal the damage.

The Most High Lord realized he was dead; the blades were cutting him in half. His intestines were starting to spill out, but the knife was temporarily stopped by his spine. He had only a few seconds left.

He hissed "You take my life? Then I take what you value too." He leapt with his last burst of augmented speed to the crowd and reached in and grabbed Helen with one hand and plunged his claws into her. She had no time to react.

Nikola screamed "NO!" and grabbed the dying vampire and threw him away from Helen. The knives finished their grisly job and the body fell in two pieces. Nikola caught Helen as she fell, easing her down gently.

She was unconscious and bleeding from four puncture wounds, one in her chest and three in her back. Nikola quickly put pressure on the wounds and packed them and wrapped them with items of clothing from the crowd. He just pointed and said kept saying "Give me that" and everyone obeyed without hesitation. The crowd stood silently watching him frantically working.

His voice rough, he said "Get a . . . ". He realized there was no word in vampire for "doctor"; vampires healed themselves. The slaves might have healers, but their medicine would be primitive. He needed a hospital, right now.

He grabbed the walkie-talkie that had fallen with Helen onto the rock floor. _Work, work, please work._ He depressed "send" and said "Can anyone hear me? Henry? Will?"

He got a burst of static and then a male voice answered. "Tesla? Is that you?" It was Will.

"William, listen carefully. Helen is injured, she needs a hospital right now. I'm bringing her to Saretu, get an ambulance there as fast as you can." He didn't wait for an answer, he just hoped Helen's faith in the young man was justified.

Nikola picked her up as gently as he could. His mind blanked on the map. All the damn tunnels looked alike; which tunnel led to Saretu?

"Where?" he asked. "Saretu?"

"That way" said a voice. Rene was there pointing down the cavern. "Third tunnel on the right after the supply store. I'll inform the Council."

The crowd parted for him and he ran. Nikola tried to run smoothly and not jostle Helen too much, but speed was more important. He found the tunnel and was relieved when he started to recognize it from the previous trip. He used the best night vision he could summon when the phosphorescence faded. He didn't have time to search for the entrance to the side tunnel so he ran directly to the lizard cave. He jumped down into it and ran through the blue poisonous creatures before they could react.

Finally he emerged into daylight. Nikola paused, panting. He was still oozing blood from some of his deeper wounds, but he didn't notice. He scanned Saretu and saw Will, Henry and Julienne racing toward him through the village. Where was the ambulance? Finally he heard the wail in the distance.

Nikola ran down the hill and made it to the rutted dirt road just as the ambulance roared up in a cloud of dust. Henry reached him then with Will and Julienne close behind.

"What the hell did you do?" demanded Will. Nikola put Helen gently on the stretcher and let the ambulance men take over.

"I hope I just saved her life."

Will turned his back on Nikola and followed the stretcher into the back of the ambulance.

Henry just said "Come on, we'll follow in the car."

Nikola shook his head. "I can't go. I can't help her, and she wouldn't want this to be for nothing."

"Dude, you can't mean that" Henry said aghast.

"I have to go back. I'll come to the hospital as soon as I can, leave me some transportation."

Julienne said tersely "The hospital is in Arstead. My motorcycle is at the house, you can use that. We'll take the car." She turned and walked back down the road toward the house.

Henry was looking at Nikola like he was a monster. "I can't believe it. The Doc is going to the hospital and you're going off to visit with your vampire friends? What is wrong with you? Besides the fact you're all bloody and torn up."

Nikola took stock of himself and realized he wasn't fully healed and had lost a lot of blood. He did what healing he could. He couldn't do anything about his torn and bloody clothes, but didn't really care.

"I'm king of the vampires, Henry, at least I will be if I get back soon. It's the only way to accomplish the mission." Nikola was almost pleading, but Henry continued to glare at him. Nikola gave up. He wasn't going to convince Henry he was doing the right thing.

"Tell William I'm not trying to take over the world. He won't believe it, but I hope you do."

"I don't know what to believe" Henry said angrily, but he was talking to Nikola's back as he trudged back up the hill to the tunnel.


	15. Chapter 15 King and Queen

Nikola trotted down the tunnel. He was too tired to run, but he needed to hurry, he had no idea how long he had until the Council met. He used the side passage to go around the lizard cave even though it used up time; he just didn't have the energy to augment his speed to ensure he would get through safely.

He slowed down as he neared the main cavern. He had to pay attention to his image now, so he just walked briskly back to the bar. Along the way he got some curious looks at his tattered and blood stained clothing, but some people actually bowed to him as he passed. He nodded back and kept going.

Both sedan chairs and their bearers were still waiting, so he at least knew that Rene was somewhere in the area. He went up to his black and silver chair and beckoned the bearers.

"Which of you can get to the estate and back again the quickest?"

The bearers exchanged looks and one stepped forward.

"I need a complete change of clothing; see Andre he will package up an outfit. Also, on my dresser in my bedroom is my wallet; bring that too. I'll be here until time for the Council meeting; if it's already started when you get back then just wait for me here. Now go."

The bearer took off at a run. Nikola went to the bar and unlocked the door with his key. He went to the refrigerator but found only cow's blood. He didn't care much for it but he needed sustenance so he heated a bag and downed it quickly. Then he went to the bathroom and cleaned himself up as well as he could.

He went back out to the remaining seven chair bearers, locking the door behind him.

"I need to find the walkie-talkie. I'm not sure where I left it, but come with me and help me look." Nikola described the device and they all set off for the area around the dais.

It was easy to find where the duel had occurred, several slaves were on their hands and knees trying to wash the blood stains off of the rock floor with buckets and rags. The walkie-talkie wasn't anywhere in sight. The body of the Most High Lord was also gone.

Nikola sent two bearers to the common market, one to the vampire market, and one to the supply store just in case someone had turned it in. He and the other three spread out and kept looking.

By the time the four of them had covered the area twice, the other bearers reported back in with no success. Nikola gave up and they went back to the sedan chairs parked in front of the bar. After the Council meeting he was going to Arstead and he would pick up something to replace the walkie-talkie when he was there.

They went back to the bar and Nikola opened up and invited the bearers in. They took some of the chairs off of the tables and sat down and he gave them each a small glass of wine. He didn't want to get them drunk, but there wasn't anything nonalcoholic he could offer them.

He was glad when the bearer he had sent for clothes returned with a package, but he was also beginning to worry about Rene and the Council. Had Rene betrayed him and was he even now taking over the Council?

Nikola went back in the bathroom and changed into a pale gray silk suit, black vest and tie, and white shirt. His wallet was in the package too and he checked to make sure his driver's license and credit cards were intact before he slipped it into the inside breast pocket. It would be just his luck to be halfway to Arstead and run out of gas or have a flat tire and have no ID or money with him. But everything was in order, although he wished he still had the cash that had been taken the first day he had arrived.

Rene finally trotted in excited and out of breath. He was pleased Nikola was there and had changed clothes. He pointed out Nikola still had claw marks on his face, but Nikola just shrugged. He had left them on purpose. The wounds were closed, but the parallel red lines would remind the Council that he had killed a full blooded vampire bigger than himself. He really didn't want any more challenges today. His hair was likely going every which way as well, but they might as well get used to that, that was how he usually looked.

The Council chambers weren't far, but Rene made him ride in his chair. Nikola would rather have walked, but he went along with it; he was going to have to act more dignified than he usually did. He felt like a pompous idiot. Perhaps after a while he could be more casual.

The Council met in a room that was surprisingly modest. A large conference table ran down the middle with eight padded swivel chairs down each side and a tall-backed swivel chair sat at one end. There were simple armless chairs against the walls behind the swivel chairs.

The room was full of people, some sitting at the table and some against the wall, but most were standing in groups talking. All talk ceased when Nikola walked in with Rene behind him and everyone stood and faced him.

Nikola's gaze swept the room once, and he walked directly to the substitute throne at the end of the table. Those in his way stepped aside. Nikola stood in front of the chair and looked at the crowd. The crowd sorted itself, sixteen men and women moving to stand in front of the sixteen chairs at the table, and the rest lining up in front of the chairs along the walls.

Nikola sat down, and then everyone else did. He looked at them for a moment in silence.

"You know who I am, but let me introduce myself anyway. I am Teslat, your king; uncrowned perhaps, but the only one of royal blood here. I have fairly fought your previous Most High Lord, and he is now defunct. Let me be clear at the start. I am not the new Most High Lord; I am His Majesty, King Teslat. You may address me as 'Sire' or 'Your Majesty'; I will not accept deviations. Now, starting on my left, I want each person at the table to introduce themselves, tell me your responsibilities, and introduce anyone you have with you and explain why they are here." Nikola nodded to the person on his left.

As they went around the table, Nikola memorized names, faces, and responsibilities, and found many of the people in the back row didn't need to be in the Council meeting. He dismissed them one by one until the only people sitting by the wall were administrative personnel responsible for taking notes for himself and each Council member.

The Council members were all High Lords, nearly half of which he had already met at the bar. One that he hadn't met before slipped and called him "Sir", but immediately corrected himself. Nikola raised an eyebrow and gave him a cold stare, but let it pass.

When everyone had finished, Nikola said "Very good. For the moment I will make no changes in the Council." There was a murmur of surprise, but Nikola just kept talking and it stopped; they needed to hear what he had to say more than he needed to hear them.

"I have plans to make great improvements in vampire civilization. That means changes, and I need you to assist me in making those changes. You are the leadership here, and I expect you to take an active role in assisting me in bringing this society up to date."

"First, I intend to create a new class; the free human. To that end, High Lord Dramelin, please draw up the appropriate laws for my approval. Any slave will be allowed to buy his or her own freedom, the freedom of another slave, or can be freed by their owner if privately owned. I will expect a scale of purchase prices from Finance at the next Council meeting. All such purchases will be in surface cash. The cash will go to the owner if privately owned or into the Treasury if publicly owned. High Lord Monkulum, as the head of Industry, create a sample of a symbol a free slave can wear to identify his status and have it ready to show me at the next Council meeting. It needs to be intricate enough that it cannot be easily copied so we don't have forgeries. Make sure Guard sees the design so the guards will know what the symbol means. A free slave will have the protection of law, just like a vampire."

That speech received an outburst of protest from around the room. Nikola held up his hand and it quieted.

"Very few slaves will be able to buy their freedom, and many won't even want to, especially those in the pens. But many of the slaves who have any possibility of earning surface cash will start working much harder, to our benefit. And those slaves who do earn enough to buy themselves will also have to buy their means of production. The slaves don't own their market stalls or goods or tools. They will also want to buy their relatives. And once they are free, ladies and gentlemen, there is another new concept I intend to implement. It's called income tax. A percentage of everything a free human earns will go into our Treasury as well. In time, yes, we will lose some slaves, but we are going to make a great deal of money in the process, far more than we are making from those individuals now."

The room was very quiet. Nikola could see a lot of thinking going on, and some of the Council members were starting to smile. Some of them were scribbling numbers on their pads of paper and nodding to themselves.

"The second change is to education. High Lord Opridya, as I recall, you are responsible for this area. I want to expand the basic education of our children from six years to eight and include more classes pertaining to the surface, including history, economics, and political science. I am also introducing a two year mandatory education program for all human children currently twelve and under to consist primarily of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Those basic skills will improve the productive capabilities of our workforce. Please provide those two revised curriculums at the next Council meeting."

"In conjunction with Education, I want Science and Technology to come up with a training plan for scientists and lab personnel. Our laboratories are in atrocious condition, and I will not tolerate it. Higher mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology will be stressed and students will be taught everything currently known in each area; no more hogging information. We won't get advances if almost everyone is spending their time rediscovering everything for themselves."

"That's enough for now. You have your assignments. The next Council meeting will be at midday three days from now. Put it on your calendars."

Nikola stood up and everyone scrambled to their feet. He strode out and heard the explosion of voices behind him as soon as he cleared the room. Maybe he had made too many changes too fast, but he had no patience for coddling them. This society had vegetated long enough, and he refused to spend months nudging them forward slowly.

He got in his sedan chair and told the bearers to take him to Saretu at top speed. He sat back and healed the marks on his face and anything else that was visible. The cow's blood hadn't been as much of a pick-me-up as he had hoped, and he still had a long journey to Arstead once he got to Saretu.

He reviewed the Council meeting in his mind. He had no idea what their usual way of doing business was, and maybe that was a good thing, he wasn't inhibited by whatever their past procedures had been. Well it was a new era now, as long as he managed to survive it. The only risk was if he went too far too fast and caused a rebellion. But it was time this society of vampires was dragged into the twenty-first century. He wondered how much it would cost to run internet and cable TV to Grandmother's estate; probably far too much. He dismissed the vampire society and its problems from his mind.

What he wanted to think about was Helen. He knew exactly where her injuries were, but he wasn't sure how deep they were. Helen was well-muscled, but the Most High Lord's claws had been very long and Nikola feared he had reached her internal organs. Very likely she had a punctured lung, but at least the bastard had grabbed her on her right side, so her heart wasn't at risk. The lowest claw could have penetrated her peritoneum, risking serious bacterial infection.

Worrying wouldn't help her. He turned his thoughts to the route he would need to take from Saretu to Arstead. He wasn't entirely sure of some of it, but he knew Arstead was northeast of Saretu, so he was sure he could get there just by following main roads in that direction.

The sedan chair stopped, then turned, and he heard the movement of the wall at the lizard bypass. Shortly there was another stop for the second wall, and then they were moving quickly again. They came out into late afternoon daylight and Nikola stopped the chair, dismounted and gave orders to the bearers.

"Tell Rene I'll be back for the next Council meeting, sooner if I can. Go home now."

The bearers took the chair back into the tunnel and Nikola trotted down the hill to Saretu. At the Sanctuary house he found Julienne's motorcycle, pink and black with a matching helmet. He devamped and shoved the helmet on his head. Not his favorite color combination, but that didn't matter now.

He had no trouble starting the machine, but took off too fast and almost lost control. He hadn't been on a motorcycle in decades, but he soon established mastery of the vehicle and made good time. His silk suit wasn't the most appropriate costume for riding, but he didn't care. If it survived intact, Andre would take care of cleaning it; if it didn't, there were more where this one came from.

Arstead was a good sized city and he drove around for a bit before spotting a sign saying "Spitalul". He quickly found the hospital, parked the bike and went in to the desk. Since he spoke all the Latin-based languages he had no difficulty with Romanian and found out that Helen was still in surgery. He didn't know what the rules were for visitation in Romania, so he lied and said he was her husband. There was no way they were keeping him away from her just because he wasn't an actual relative.

He walked into the waiting room. Henry, William, Julienne and Jerry were there, but before he could say hello Will leapt up and attacked him with his fists.

"You son of a bitch, how could you do that to her?" Will screamed.

Nikola was too surprised to stop the first few blows. Will got in two to his body and two to his head that stung before he reacted, backing up and blocking Will's wild but powerful punches. Henry and Jerry grabbed Will from behind and held him, more for Will's sake than Nikola's.

Henry growled "Explain fast, or I'm helping him beat you to a pulp."

Nikola was stunned that they actually thought that he would ever injure Helen. "I was in a fight . . . I was overmatched, so I finished it as quickly as I could. The vampire I was fighting knew he was going to die, I was staying out of his reach waiting for him to go down when he went for Helen. I was too slow, I couldn't stop him. Believe me, if I had had any idea at all he would go for her I would have stayed in closer and let him rip at me until he died."

Henry spoke, Will was still too angry. "So you dumped her on us and went back to be King of the Vampires, you lousy, arrogant, selfish bastard."

Nikola raised his hands to nearly shoulder height, trying to placate them. "I did what I had to do. I did what Helen would want me to do."

Will found his voice. "Right, she would want you to abandon her. We're not stupid, Tesla. All your pretending to be nice is just a big act; you're the same jackass you always were. Get out of here or I swear I'll rip your head off."

Nikola lost his temper and started to vamp just a little. He put his left hand on his hip and pointed at Will with his right forefinger. "Believe what you want, it doesn't change a thing. But if you don't know I would never hurt Helen, then you really are stupider than I thought you were." He spun around and walked to the waiting room doorway, paused and turned back. "By the way, I told the hospital that I'm her husband, so it's me the doctors are going to talk to, not you."

Nikola went out into the hall and walked up and down a little, letting himself calm down and return to fully human. Then he stood against the wall, leaning back and crossing his arms. He could stand there all night if he had to.

It was only an hour and a half before the doctor still in scrubs came down the hall. Nikola stood up straight and acknowledged that he was "the husband".

"She is in Recovery now. It went well, but there was much damage and internal bleeding. Her right lung was punctured, there was liver and bowel damage, and three broken ribs. But the outlook is hopeful, as long as there is no infection; we are giving her antibiotics. Do you know what happened? The injury pattern is very odd."

Nikola shook his head; he wasn't about to start explaining vampires to anyone. "Can I see her?"

The doctor hesitated, then said "Yes, I suppose. She will be moved to ICU in a little while, but there is no reason you cannot be with her." He beckoned to a nurse to take Nikola to Helen. Nikola said "One moment" and ducked into the waiting room. No matter how obnoxious the kids were being, they had a right to know Helen had made it through the surgery.

"She's out of surgery and in Recovery. I'm going to go be with her." He got glad looks from all four at the first statement, and sour looks from William and Henry at the second. Nikola knew they didn't really believe he would hurt her, if they did they would have tackled him to keep him from being alone with her instead of just frowning and glaring. They were afraid for her and taking it out on him as the most convenient target. They would get over it and it's not like they did him any real damage. He shouldn't have gotten angry, and he shook his head a little at himself as he quickly followed the nurse.

Helen was still unconscious, her face pale and drawn. She was being given oxygen to help her breathe and had an IV drip. Nikola pulled up a chair, sat down and held her hand. When they moved her to ICU, he went with and resumed the same position.

He could go for a very long time without eating or sleeping, especially since he was just sitting in a chair. He was not going to move from her side until she was out of danger.

As evening turned to night her fever soared. There was nothing Nikola could do, but he knew unconscious people often could hear, even if they couldn't respond. So he told her long, involved accounts of how he invented various motors, dynamos, commutators, and systems of electrical distribution. He knew they were boring, but he wasn't trying to wake her up, he just wanted her to know he was there; that she was safe, and he would always be there when she needed him.

By morning he had to vamp a little to keep his voice going. The nurses came and went as did the doctor. Her fever was lower, but was still high and could easily spike again. He told her Serbian folk tales and funny stories about his two homely aunts, his cat Macak, his three sisters, and his childhood inventions- a cornstalk popgun, a frog fishing hook, and a bug-driven propeller. He willed her to react, to respond, to wake up, but she just laid there, still and pale.

He only stopped when someone else came into the ICU. Will and Henry were each allowed in for short five minute visits. He withdrew and drank a little water to moisten his throat and gave them time so they could each speak to her in private. They both looked tired, but at least they were a lot calmer and more rational than the night before. William nodded to him curtly, and Henry gave him a bashful "Sorry".

When he was alone with her again he went on telling her about his life, silly tales about the rooster that liked him, the gander that attacked him, riding on the family cow, and jumping off of the roof of the barn with a parasol_. Please, please wake up_. He just told her happy things, whatever he could think of, hour after hour up to his "death".

"You know, Helen, when I was nearing my fake death I started doing some bizarre things to make everybody think I was going senile. When I played dead for the maid, I was lying on the bed stark naked except I was wearing socks." Was she finally smiling just a little?

"When we make mad, passionate love, I hope you don't mind if I wear socks. I can't help it, my feet get cold. Well you know that, you've been in bed with me."

Helen's eyes fluttered open. "Socks?" she asked weakly.

Nikola gave her a big smile. "You're awake! Sure, socks. I'll wear a pair on my feet, and another on my ears if you like."

"Stop it, don't make me laugh, it hurts."

"Anything you want, anything at all. Are you thirsty?"

Helen nodded a little and he poured her some water and held the straw so she could take some sips. He sipped a little too.

"Don't try to talk. Everything's fine, I'm King of the Vampires and I've already got the ball rolling on freeing the slaves. I don't have to be back for a couple of days."

Helen gave him a little smile, closed her eyes and went to sleep. Nikola just sat and watched her. By afternoon her fever had dropped further and she was moved from the ICU to a regular room.

Once there, anyone could visit so her room was filled with Henry, Will, Jerry, and Julienne for a while. Nikola hung back and let them have some time with her, although most of the time Helen was asleep. When visiting hours ended, they had to leave but as her "husband" he was allowed to stay.

The hospital staff set up a cot for him so he could lie down, which he did for a few hours. He slept a little, but woke up every time Helen made the slightest sound. He gave her more water during the night, and got the staff to give her more pain medication when she couldn't get back to sleep.

When she was asleep again, he took a little walk around the hospital and picked up a couple of new syringes that he slipped into his pocket. He was going to need them later.

In the morning Helen woke and was more alert. She was given a clear liquid breakfast, and Will and Henry came back to visit.

Nikola took Henry aside. "Can you and William stay for a few hours? I have some shopping to do."

Henry frowned at him. "Shopping? You're leaving to go shopping?"

"The walkie-talkie was stolen so I need to pick up a cell phone that works in this area and a GPS so we can identify the surface location of the entrance that goes to Grandmother's estate. Helen is out of danger, you and William are right here to keep her company and make sure she's taken care of properly. Why shouldn't I go pick up some things? Unless you want to go get them?"

"Neither of us needs to go, we have people remember? I'll call Jerry and Julienne, they'll get what you need. Anything else?"

Nikola shook his head. He really had forgotten someone else could do it; he had gotten used to depending on just himself and Helen. Not that he would ever admit to having forgotten anything.

Nikola went back in Helen's room and sat quietly listening to Helen and Will going over Sanctuary business. Will was filling her in on everything that had happened while she had been underground, and it took quite a while, with Helen's questions and instructions.

Will and Henry went to the cafeteria for lunch, while Helen had another liquid meal. When they came back, Henry handed Helen a new cell phone and Nikola a cell phone and a GPS.

"I put Helen's new number and Will's and mine in your speed dial, and I got a GPS for me too" he told Nikola.

"Very efficient, Heinrich." Nikola turned to Helen. "The next vampire Council meeting is tomorrow, and I have things I need to do before then."

"You're going? But . . ." Helen looked around the room. "But you'll be alone. Perhaps someone should go with you."

"I'm either the King of the Vampires or I'm not. If I am, I don't need anyone's help; if I'm not then anyone with me would probably be killed." _Oops, not very reassuring_. "I'll be fine, assuming I can get a ride back to Saretu."

Henry volunteered "I've got the rental car, I can give you a lift." To Will he said "I'll be back in an hour."

In the car Henry said "So you're really King of the Vampires, huh? I guess that's pretty cool, everybody having to do whatever you say."

"Truthfully, Henry, it's not half as cool as I thought it would be. It's mostly a lot of arguing, politics, and work. I'm going to try to make myself King Emeritus as fast as I can. Don't let Helen get out of the hospital too soon. In a couple of days I might be able to fly back with you guys."

"Right. Like I have any control over the Doc."

"Point taken. Look I'll try to call you as soon as I can with the location of the estate entrance. Don't forget the supplies for the bar."

"Jerry and Julienne are working it. They'll have it ready on time."

"Maybe we can use the estate entrance for deliveries, if there's a road nearby."

Henry just shrugged. This entrance, that entrance, he didn't see much difference. He let Nikola off in Saretu, turned around, and headed back to Arstead.

Nikola trotted back down the tunnel, wishing he had a way to contact Rene so his sedan chair could have been waiting for him. The lack of underground communications was something else he was going to have to fix. But not right now.

He stopped at the bar when he got to the main cavern. It was empty, but he had a couple of units of cow's blood. They really were going to have to keep the stocks up better than this. He strode through the cavern, acknowledging bows with a nod, and started trotting again as soon as he was alone. He wondered how much improvement would be needed to the tunnels to make them accessible to scooters and golf carts. Probably not much.

When he finally reached the estate he bounded up the steps into the main hall and headed for his suite. He grabbed a servant on the way past and told them to see that Grandmother's handmaiden was informed that he would like to see her in about an hour, if that was convenient.

He cleaned himself up and changed into another beautiful new suit. The gray one was rather dirty and wrinkled, but he liked it and hoped Andre could clean it. This one was the color of a dark red wine, not his usual taste but he still looked good in it. Well, he looked good in practically anything, didn't he? He put the syringes in his pocket.

He was nervous walking through the silent halls of Grandmother's wing. He had the feeling convincing Grandmother to do what he wanted was not going to be easy.

When he reached the outer room to Grandmother's chambers, the inner door was open and the vampire in gray was seated at her desk. He stopped when he reached it.

"We've never been introduced. My name is Nikola Tesla, also known as Teslat."

She arched an eyebrow at him in surprise, and smiled a little. "My name is Iris."

"I'm very pleased to meet you, Iris." She didn't follow the beginning and ending with a vowel name convention, which told him she was older than this society as well. He gave her a little bow, and went in to Grandmother's sanctum, closing the door behind him.

"Good afternoon, Ana" he said cheerfully.

"I did not expect to see you again so soon." She made it clear she was finding it bothersome to have him come so often.

"I am worried about you. After you gave me your blood and I learned about the First Death and the Second Death, I started to think about what might happen to you if there is a Third Death."

"If there is, what difference would it make? What could anyone do about it?"

"I could find something amazing, important, and difficult for you to do, something that would engage your talents for years, so you would sail right through it."

She was interested now, but she said "I do not like noise and bustle, and I am fine with only my own company."

"But others need you."

"Pah. No one has needed me for many years. Even Rene and Iris could do without me."

"I need you, and all the vampires down here need you."

"For what?"

"They need you to be their queen, and so do I."

"You are insane, boy. You are the king, and you want to marry an old woman?"

"You're still beautiful enough to want to marry, but no, I'm crazier than that. I want you to be my blood daughter."

She was thunderstruck. The idea was absurd, and yet if he truly wished to pass his crown on to her, the plan was viable if odd. There was one thing wrong with it though.

"You are far too young to make a blood child. You cannot reverse your blood and inject it through your feeders, can you?"

Nikola pulled out a syringe. "I don't need to be able to do that." He pulled out the second syringe. "In fact, we can trade blood if you would prefer."

She said hesitatingly "That would make a very strong bond. It is the first step toward marriage. I do not think that is wise, between us. But I see you do not wish to remain here and be king."

"But would you accept my blood and the job of being queen?"

"The royal blood is weak in you, it would be very weak in me, but it would still mean much when no one else carries it. I would rule, and you would go back to the surface? I do not know if I could do this. It has been very long since I went to the surface or even out there." She gestured vaguely at the door.

"There's an entrance to the surface on the estate. I'll set up a way that you can go there and talk to me and others that will help you, give you all the assistance you need. There will be animal blood and wine for the bar, teachers to explain about how things are on the surface, whatever you need to help free the slaves here. How about it Ana?"

She looked at him, bemused. "You are a very strange boy Nikola. You want nothing more than to be king; then you want nothing more than to give it away. It is the woman, Helen, isn't it?"

Nikola sighed. She saw right through him. "Yes it is, I would do anything for her. Besides, I'm really a scientist; I would much rather be working in a lab than figuring out how to make this society economically viable."

"Very well, then, make me your blood daughter." Ana laughed and added "Such a young father I will have."

Nikola uncapped a syringe and withdrew blood from his arm. He approached her, but she stopped him and said "Use both, it will be more natural." He filled the second syringe as well, and she turned and tilted her head to give him easy access to her neck.

He knelt beside her, found the pulse under her skin, stuck in both syringes and depressed the plungers. He pulled the needles out. There was no residual bleeding.

She sat looking inward for a few moments. Nikola stood up and recapped both syringes and put them in his pocket. There was no way to dispose of medical waste in a vampire society, and there might be traces of Ana's blood on the needles that he could examine later back at the Sanctuary.

She raised her eyes and focused on him and said "Now tell me all."

They spent the rest of the day and evening together. Nikola explained his plans and what actions he had taken so far. Ana asked intelligent questions, and quickly grasped his vision of the future of the vampire society. She seemed to agree with at least the immediate goals, although Nikola could tell she had some reservations about what this society would ultimately look like.

Afterward Nikola went back to his suite, tired but pleased with himself. If all went well at the Council meeting tomorrow, he would be free to return to Helen and go back to the Sanctuary with her. He would likely need to spend a lot of time on the phone with Ana at first, and make periodic trips back to bolster her authority and ensure this society stayed on the right track. But he wouldn't have to live here, and he would have time to work in the lab and be with Helen at home.

He climbed into his huge bed alone, consoling himself with the thought that he wouldn't be able to share a bed with Helen for days, probably weeks, anyway, so even if he was with her he would still be sleeping alone. But after that, she owed him a make out session, and he had great hopes it would develop into much more. He fell asleep with a satisfied smile on his face.


	16. Chapter 16 Hand Off

In the morning Nikola took his cell phone and GPS and headed up the long tunnel from the estate to the surface. He wondered at the lack of a lizard cave until he emerged into the morning sunlight.

There was very little in sight. The rolling hills and lack of trees told him he was at a high elevation. In the distance he spotted a group of moving dots that he finally decided was a herd of sheep. There were no houses or people anywhere in sight, other than the possibility that some of the distant dots were shepherds.

He checked his GPS location and found it on a map on his phone. There was a road not too far distant, but this site would need a lot of work to be a viable way station for Sanctuary personnel. The good news was land in the area was likely to be cheap.

He dialed Helen's cell and she answered on the third ring.

"Nikola?"

"Good morning my Calla Ethiopica. How are you feeling today?"

"Hungry and tired of being in bed. I'm your Calla what?"

"Ethiopica. My magnificent beauty. I'm on the surface at the estate entrance and I have the GPS coordinates. Got a pen?"

Helen got writing materials and Nikola read her the coordinates. He explained the situation at the site, and they agreed to use it as the future shipping point for supplies pending purchase of land and installation of a pre-fab building.

"Hey Helen, congratulate me, I have a daughter."

"WHAT?"

"I made Grandmother my blood descendant, so she can take over the day-to-day drudgery of dragging these folks into modern times and I can come home."

"Congratulations, but do you think that was wise? I doubt very much Grandmother looks at things the same way we do."

"Long term you're right, but we had quite a tete-a-tete and I'm sure she will follow my initial plans to eliminate slavery and get these vampires up to date. After that, well, I'm still the king and I can come back from time to time and do a course correction if I have to."

"Well, use your best judgment" Helen said, sounding worried. She didn't have a great deal of faith in Nikola's judgment.

"We're having a Council meeting in a few hours. If all goes well with the hand-off I'll see you this afternoon."

"All right Nikola, I'll get the team working on setting up a permanent site at your location. Good luck."

"Hah, I don't need luck, I have skill."

They hung up and Nikola trotted happily down the tunnel noting that there were some areas that would need work before they would be able to use electric carts and scooters. Back at the estate he had a note waiting for him from Iris telling him to wear black and silver again, Queen Ana would also so they would match.

He stopped in to see Rene in his office. The High Lord did not look happy, but Nikola ignored that and told him what needed to be done to the tunnel.

Rene scowled. "The tunnel is serviceable as it is."

"Not for vehicle traffic. Do you have any techies?"

Rene looked confused. "Techies? Vehicles?"

"The golf carts and scooters I'm going to import. And I need to go over communications devices with your technical personnel. You do have technical personnel don't you?"

Rene replied "There are slaves who do repairs, they are as technical as I have."

"Okay, then I'll give it to Science and Technology. Do you have a draft of the new laws?"

Rene handed Nikola several pages. Nikola read them, marked up changes and handed them back. Rene looked over the changes with a disgusted look on his face.

"You do too many things too fast, Nikola."

"Wait until Queen Ana takes over, I expect the pace will pick up quite a bit."

Rene looked confused. "Who is Queen Ana?"

"Grandmother, or Mother to you. I made her my blood descendant, and she will be taking over for me for a while."

Rene stared at him, horrified. "Then you are my grandfather . . . no, that's not right, I was her son before you became her father. This is too confusing. Are we related?"

"No, I don't think so. She and I now both have royal blood, but you do not unless she gives you another transfusion. So you're not in line for the throne, Rene, but I suppose you'll be busier around here since Queen Ana is going to be busy ruling."

"This is crazy."

"You don't think the Council will obey her?"

Rene sat back and looked thoughtful. "They will respect her age, certainly, but they may also be afraid of her in a way they do not fear you. A little fear will bring obedience, but too much fear could cause a preemptive attack in self-defense. I do not know how the others will react."

"You will stand with Queen Ana if anyone overreacts?"

"Of course, I must. You do not really understand what you have done, do you? As her much younger blood child, I must obey her. But she is so much older than you, she does not have to obey you, and could actually reverse the bond and make you her slave. That is why blood descendants are rare, one almost always controls the other, and the junior party not only agrees to all, but often becomes besotted with the senior and does so willingly."

Nikola felt a little ill. He hadn't understood that part at all. But Ana liked him; she wouldn't do that to him, would she? But if she did, she could change his plans to whatever she liked and force him to support her. She knew that vampires once ruled the surface, would she want to go back to that?

It suddenly occurred to him that that explained a lot about his reaction to Afina as well. As soon as she had awakened, he had started following her around like a puppy, trying to earn her approval. Her spell over him had only been broken when she had bitten him and then tossed him down the prison shaft. Okay, she had been beautiful, strong, and compelling too, but now he knew not everything he felt for her had been real. That made him feel better about how he had acted with Afina, but made him more worried about Ana. If Afina could wrap him around her little finger instantly, Ana could do it too.

All that flashed through his head in a few seconds. He smiled confidently at Rene and said "Don't worry, I can handle the bond. Besides, Ana and I are in agreement so there's no reason for either of us to try to dominate the other."

Nikola left to dress for the Council meeting. For a moment he considered not dressing in black and silver just to show Ana he was independent of her, but he rejected the idea. Dressing to match wasn't about Ana being the dominant vampire, it was about Ana being a woman. He had enough experience with Helen to know the difference.

They rode together in the black and silver chair, with their bearers dressed to match. Nikola was sure they looked impressive, especially with everyone bowing as they passed. He was going to miss the deference when he went back to the Sanctuary.

When they arrived at the Council Chamber, there were quite a few sedan chairs parked outside the room including Rene's. Nikola hoped everything would go well as he assisted Ana down. Not that she needed help, but he had been raised to be a gentleman, he couldn't help it.

In the chamber Nikola was pleased to see a duplicate of his large chair had been placed at the foot of the table for Ana, and the room was far less crowded than the first session. Everyone took their places as he entered and stood waiting for him. He saw Ana to her chair, and she stood waiting too.

He sat down at the head of the table.

"This is my blood descendant, Queen Ana. She is second only to me and she is to be obeyed no differently. When I am not present, she speaks with my voice."

Ana looked at the sixteen High Lords at the table. "Some of you will remember me, some not, but I know all of you. I am the eldest; I know far more than anyone here. I have lived quietly until now, letting you do as you will, but you have accomplished little. King Teslat is changing that, and I approve. His changes are mine as well."

There was silence following her speech. The glances exchanged around the table between the High Lords were uneasy, but not especially fearful. Nikola found that encouraging and started the meeting business.

"I'm sure we all remember what was said at the last meeting, so we will dispense with rehashing it. High Lord Dramelin, please read your proposed new laws."

Rene did so, and Nikola was pleased that he had faithfully included Nikola's changes and had a clean copy ready. He passed it to Nikola.

"Does anyone object, or have proposed changes?"

The room remained silent. Nikola picked up a pen and signed the bottom of the new laws in the space provided on each.

"High Lord Monkulum, do you have the free slave symbol?"

The High Lord of Industry passed over an intricate silver circle with an off-center triangle in the center attached to a fine silver chain. Nikola examined it and nodded.

"This will do nicely. How quickly can you produce another ten?"

"How quickly do you want them Sire?"

"Two hours, delivered to Queen Ana's estate. Deliver another hundred as soon as you can. Queen Ana will personally award them at first."

High Lord Monkulum nodded agreement.

Nikola continued "This first one is for my slave Helen. I officially grant her her freedom as of now." He doubted Helen would be returning, but if she did he didn't want her to have any trouble.

"Finance, do you have the slave purchase price list?"

The Head of Finance, High Lord Tempolin, handed Nikola the schedule as well as other sheets of paper full of figures, gave one to Ana second, and then passed out copies to the other Council members.

"Your Majesty, along with the schedule I have provided income projections and a statement of the current treasury balances, as well as current income and expenses."

Nikola nodded and looked over the pages. He hadn't thought about or asked how much money was on hand because he expected support from the Sanctuary, but no one else knew that except Ana. One of the pages listed the Council member's salaries.

Nikola decided a carrot was in order for the additional information being provided voluntarily and without him asking for it. "Excellent High Lord Tempolin, increase your salary 500 a decday. High Lord Opridya, do you have the curriculums?"

High Lord Opridya looked nervous as she gave one to Nikola, then one to Ana, then handed the rest to be passed around.

"I have established the curriculums as you commanded Sire, including a graduate track in science. But . . . I am very sorry, but I know of no one who could teach the classes about the surface. Unless . . . " She looked at Ana. Ana stared back imperiously and Opridya dropped her eyes.

Nikola frowned a little. Ana was not going to be teaching classes, she was the Queen, but apparently she had just made that clear without saying a word. "Instructors from the surface will be provided. That is the purpose of the additional 'free slave' symbols I need, so that surface humans can come here without fear of being attacked or enslaved. Do you understand, Guard Head High Lord Battenit"?

"Yes, Sire, but I have a request."

Nikola raised his eyebrows and waited.

High Lord Battenit cleared his throat. "It has been a long time since I have been on the surface, but I expect ways of fighting and weaponry have changed quite a bit. Could the Guard get an instructor from the surface too, to bring our fighting skills and tactics up to date Sire?"

Nikola hesitated then said "I will consider it." He definitely did not want to give the vampires the ability to conquer anyone on the surface, but perhaps re-introducing some ancient fighting skills such as karate or judo might be workable.

"Does anyone else have any requests or suggestions?"

To his surprise, Rene spoke up. "There are small vehicles on the surface that run on electricity are there not Your Majesty? We could perhaps purchase some of these?"

Nikola was becoming quite pleased with Rene; he was picking up his cues very well. "The tunnels will likely need work before such vehicles could be used effectively, but I will see that samples are made available so that work can be planned efficiently. Also, I want electronic communications established; sending runners with messages is far too slow. High Lord Kandrek, as Head of Science and Technology, that will be your job, provide a status update at the next Council meeting."

High Lord Kandrek looked pale and slightly panicky. Nikola knew the scientists in the labs had no idea how to accomplish what he had just demanded. He drew a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and slid it over to him.

"Try that."

High Lord Kandrick unfolded the paper and stared uncomprehendingly at the diagrams Nikola had drawn. No wonder the vampire labs were in such poor shape, their Head couldn't read a simple wiring diagram. Nikola made a mental note to discuss replacing him with Ana, although he didn't know who would be better at the job.

"Anything else?" No one spoke so Nikola wrapped it up. "Queen Ana will be running the next few Council meetings while I attend to other business." _Like going home and finishing the rest of the patent applications I owe Helen, and start working on an idea or two I have._

Nikola stood up and the rest of the room did as well. He walked down to the other end of the table and offered Ana his arm, who took it with a smile. They exited, and Nikola heard only a buzz of conversation behind them, not the explosion of sound that had happened last time. Good, they were adjusting.

When they reached the estate, Nikola changed into something more casual, a simple dark brown wool suit rather than the flashy black and silver outfit he had worn. Then he did the walk to the surface again and called Henry and asked for three things- a cell phone with a recharger for Ana, a couple of small electric vehicles, and a van to pick up his luggage, and to have it at the nearest accessible location in two hours.

Back at the estate he had Andre start packing trunks for both himself and Helen; they had both acquired a great deal of clothing, most of which they had never had the chance to wear. He had Andre leave some casual and dressy outfits for them both. He expected to be back occasionally, although he didn't know if Helen would be; if she never did, she certainly wouldn't miss a few outfits from the mounds that Andre would pack for her.

He visited Ana one last time and showed her how a cell phone worked. She picked it up so quickly, he probably hadn't needed to actually show her. He wondered how much more technology she had picked up from his blood; too late to do anything about it now.

She stopped him as he was leaving. "Nikola, you need to be aware of something."

He waited, wondering if she was going to try to take over from him.

She continued "For now, there is much work to be done. But the day will come when these vampires will not be content to live below ground and mind their own business. Once they learn about the surface, see what the surface is like and how humans live there, they will want much more. I will not stop them in this."

Nikola said sharply "You would free humans and then turn around and slaughter them to take what they have?" He tensed, waiting for an attack that did not come.

Ana looked surprised. "Not at all. I will not permit a war, Nikola, I have seen too much of that. But it is vampire nature to desire power, whether it is political, economic or personal. I know you have had little success, until now, with the first two, but you have always had the third, even before the Source Blood. You were important and famous for many years. It is not fair, nor even possible, to deny the opportunity to the rest of us."

"What are you proposing?" Nikola asked warily.

"I propose nothing, I am just making you aware. In a decade or two, vampires will be working to become captains of industry, CEOs of major corporations, elected leaders of nations, and perhaps even famous inventors. You and I will channel their ambitions as we deem best, and you and I will profit a great deal. There will be no war as long as we are careful and do not frighten the humans."

Nikola looked pensive, then nodded. "Frightening the humans would be bad. The ones on the surface are more powerful than you can imagine right now. But as long as we stay within the framework of their laws, anyone, vampire or human, should have the right to become, to achieve, all that they can."

"The difference has always been that humans are fragmented, working only for themselves or a group they identify with- a tribe, a nation, a religion, or who knows what. We are not. We are one people, and one day you and I will sit at the center of a vast web of power."

"But we will use it wisely, for the good of all."

Ana smiled and said "You are the king."

"I am, but I promise you, I will never forget that you are the queen" he replied. They looked into each other's eyes and understood each other. For the next ten, twenty, even fifty years they would work together. After that, there would be a reckoning between them.

Nikola bowed to her formally and she returned the courtesy, and they parted.

An hour later Nikola, Ana, and Rene walked up the tunnel together to the surface. At the surface opening, Nikola took a moment to survey the landscape and imagine what it would look like in a decade: buildings, a lot of animals and an efficient blood production operation, electric vehicles going in and out of the tunnel, and humans and vampires working together.

In two decades, he expected there would be cars and trucks, vampires living on the surface with television and internet, maybe a helicopter . . . Nikola pulled back from that image. In two or three or five decades, he was probably going to be in hot water with Helen again because he was quite sure the society of vampires wasn't going to be just underground or camped on a wind-swept hillside in Romania.

There was more than one way to take over the world, and some of them were entirely legal. He could do a tremendous amount of good in the world with that kind of power, but he had to still be king to do it. He resolved to re-read Machiavelli and study anything he could find on political intrigue and double-dealing. Considering the way Helen had finessed the extraction of the Sanctuary network from surface politics, she could be a big asset to him as well. The future could be rosy indeed.

Nikola was smiling as the three of them were followed by a line of servants carrying trunks down to the road where Henry and Jerry were waiting with a large van. They had unloaded a golf cart and a scooter and Henry was riding the scooter around while waiting for them.

Nikola introduced Ana and Rene to Henry and Jerry while the servants loaded the van with trunks. Henry gave Ana her phone and recharger. She got on the golf cart and Rene took the scooter, they waived farewell and headed back toward the cave entrance, slowly so the servants could keep up.

The three of them crowded into the front seat of the van; Henry drove. They rode in silence for a few minutes, then Henry asked "What kind of electrical receptacles do they have down there?"

Nikola replied "Don't worry, they'll make converters if they need them."

Henry nodded. It was quiet again for a few minutes, then Jerry asked "How can we get in touch with them if we need to talk to Ana or Rene?"

Nikola sighed. He already missed being king. "I have it covered."

"But . . ."

"In a few weeks you should be able to call Queen Ana directly. In the mean while you'll have to send someone in physically."

"But . . ."

"They'll be safe. I have a symbol for them to wear that indicates they're a free human. They would be safe on Queen Ana's estate anyway."

"But . . ."

"Enough already. I said I have it covered." Nikola was getting irritated. He really missed being king.

The rest of the ride was very quiet.

Henry and Nikola both got out at the hospital, and Jerry took over driving. The trunks would go directly to the Sanctuary plane since Helen planned to fly out in the morning.

Will was with Helen in her room. She was sitting in a chair at a small table in the corner, and a game of chess was set up between them. Nikola went over and hugged her gently. He could feel she had most of the bandages off, just light pads over the wounds. She hugged him back more vigorously than he had expected.

Nikola perched on the edge of the bed. "Everything is taken care of, at least for now. Queen Ana has the reins, and I signed laws setting up a path to freedom for the slaves and legal protection for free humans. I also have established the start of a minimal education program for the human children."

Nikola paused. He had wanted to do this in private, but he couldn't wait. He took the first "free human" symbol out of his pocket and held it out to her. "This is the prototype symbol that the free humans will wear to show their status. I declared you free in the Council session, so you are the first free human of the vampire society."

Helen took it with a very small smile, and blinked rapidly. Nikola was afraid he had messed up again; was she crying? What had he done? But when she looked up at him, his fears vanished. She sniffed but her eyes were shining happily as she put the chain over her head.

"Thank you, Nikola. This may be the best gift you have ever given me." She reached her hand out toward him and they clasped hands for a second. Then Will interrupted.

"Hey, it's your move. I've got your king cornered."

Helen looked back at the game, slid her bishop across the board and said "Check mate."

Will shook his head. "That's what, three games in a row?"

"Four, I believe."

"I take it back, if you can slaughter me four games to none, then you are well enough to fly home. Henry, do you want to go get something to eat?"

Henry had been standing back watching. "Yep, I saw a great looking burger place a block down."

The two of them headed to the door, but Henry hung back a moment. "Uh, Nikola brought a bunch of clothes from 'down there' for you, do you want me to bring you some for tomorrow?"

Helen said "Yes please", although she wasn't sure he could color coordinate an outfit for her, at least he was thorough and she would have a full set of clean clothes.

She and Nikola were only alone for a few minutes. She got up slowly and walked to her bed, with him hovering around her in case she faltered. But she made it safely without help and settled back sitting up against a pile of pillows. Nikola took a chair and moved it to the side of the bed and brought her up to date on the last Council meeting and the guidance he had given Ana.

"So it's started" Helen mused.

"Yes. It will take years, maybe decades to finish, but freeing the slaves is on an inexorable path, and it only took me about two weeks to do it. You owe me one make-out session."

Helen laughed lightly. "Do I? It seems you had a lot of help."

Nikola shrugged, but they were interrupted by Helen's dinner arriving. He was glad to see it was real food this time, not just liquids. He made small talk while she ate; not a skill he practiced often, but with Helen he didn't consider talking about inconsequential things a waste of time.

She tired quickly though, so when she was done eating he unfolded the cot that had been pushed against the wall and set it up for himself. He helped remove the excess pillows from behind her so she could sleep, and turned off the lights, leaving just a small night light.

Nikola gave her a peck on the lips and wished her sweet dreams, then went out and wandered around to the various waiting rooms and read old Romanian magazines for a few hours. Eventually he felt he could sleep, and went back to her room and settled on the cot for the night.

He had trouble quieting his mind; it was full of thoughts of improved agriculture that would eliminate starvation, free electrical power for everyone, and the elimination of war through robotics. Well, perhaps that last one wasn't achievable, but he would find a way. He fell asleep smiling.


	17. Chapter 17 Nikola's Reward

The clothes Henry brought actually all matched. He explained that they were packed in the trunks like that, and he'd only had to individually pick out underwear and shoes, at which point Helen shooed him out so she could dress.

She objected to the wheelchair to take her to the car, but not very loudly so Nikola knew she wasn't as recovered as she claimed. At the airport the car took them out on the tarmac directly to the private aircraft.

Helen got slowly out of the car, but hesitated at the foot of the narrow moveable stairs leading to the plane's hatch. Nikola was directly behind her, prepared to break her fall if she tried the stairs and fell, but at her hesitation said "May I?" and picked her up without waiting for an answer.

Helen mused on the benefits of having a slender strong man around as he carried her easily up the stairs, into the plane, and down the aisle to a grouping of seats that included something akin to a couch. He sat down carefully with her, leaned back on the cushioned arm and put his feet up. He let her slip off of his lap onto the couch with her own feet up so she had her own comfortable seat but she couldn't slide off with him between her and the edge. She had the choice of using the back of the couch or his body to lean back on, and to his delight chose him. Of course he had maneuvered their seating so that the angle of her body made it easier to lean back on him than the couch, but still.

After the plane took off and leveled out for the long trip home, Helen napped on him for a while. Will brought over an afghan and spread it over her as she started to doze and got a nod of appreciation from Nikola. He doubted she was chilly since she had him for a warm pillow, but it was a nice gesture.

She woke after a couple of hours and found Henry had made a huge pile of sandwiches, plus tea for her while he and Will drank soda. Nikola helped her sit up at the table they placed in front of the couch so she could eat.

To his disappointment, after eating she moved to a reclining chair with the afghan and read magazines Henry brought her. Nikola looked at some of them for a while but soon got bored and wandered off to the cockpit, while Will and Henry talked on their cell phones and played games on their tablets.

By the time they landed it was late and they were all glad to disembark. Nikola carried Helen down the stairs to the waiting van, while the trunks and luggage were unloaded. The van took them to a secluded entry point to the underground world where they could use one of the Praxian spheres to travel to the Sanctuary.

Henry took one sphere with the trunks, and Helen, Nikola and Will took a second. Helen was looking peaked by this time, and Nikola looked around the sphere, highly dissatisfied.

"Why aren't there any seats in these things?" he complained.

"Ask the Praxians," Will replied, "they created this system."

Helen explained "Seats would unbalance the spheres slightly and cause excessive wear. As they are, they will last at least a century."

Nikola sighed. "How long is this trip going to take?"

"About another twenty-five minutes from here."

Nikola suddenly knelt down on one knee, his other leg at right angles in front of him. "Helen, here sit down on my knee."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, of course."

Helen sat down gingerly, keeping one hand on one of the side grab bars and the other on Nikola's shoulder. She didn't have anything to lean back on, but it was far better than standing.

When they finally arrived at the Sanctuary, Will was first off and helped her down the stairs to the floor. She walked slowly but steadily into the Sanctuary and took the elevator to her floor, with Nikola beside her all the way. Will went to check in with the duty personnel to let them know he was back.

Helen went straight through her sitting room to her bedroom, and sent Nikola to fetch her something to eat, she didn't really care much what. That gave her some privacy to change back into bed clothes, and she really was hungry.

It seemed it took him a long time, but Nikola finally returned with a tray. He'd made her a salad with three kinds of dressing in small cups on the side, a selection of thinly sliced cold meats and cheeses, three Oreo cookies and a pot of chamomile tea.

"I didn't know what you were in the mood for; if you want something different, I'll take this back and get it for you."

"This is fine, Nikola. I won't need anything else tonight."

"I'll wait and take the tray back."

Helen didn't argue with him. It was quicker just to eat and let him take the tray, although eating while he sat and watched her was a little uncomfortable.

He left with the tray when she was done and she picked up a book from her night stand to read until she felt sleepy. Then she heard the outer door of her suite open and close, and Nikola poked his head in. Now what?

"I'll be out here in the sitting room if you need anything."

She eyed him up and down. "You're too tall to sleep on the couch, and I have my cell phone right here, I can call if I need help. Go to bed, Nikola, or go to the lab or the library."

He hesitated. She said firmly "Go. I'm tired and I want to be alone now."

He mumbled "Okay" in a disappointed voice and left. She got up and locked the outer door to her suite. It wouldn't keep him from coming in, but it would send a message that she hoped he would respect. It apparently worked, she didn't see him again that night.

In the morning Helen washed and dressed and went down to the kitchen for a bite to eat. It was early, and Henry was there. He insisted on making her tea and toast with butter and marmalade, and offered eggs and bacon which she declined.

She went to her office and found a whole pineapple sitting on her desk. She had stashed the "Language of Flowers" book in her top drawer and looked it up. It was supposed to be Pine Apple but she smiled at "You are perfect". Well not quite, but she appreciated the sentiment. She set it aside and set to work catching up with what she had missed and knotty problems that had been set aside for her return.

She surprised herself and worked the whole day, making a satisfying dent in the pile of papers on her desk and the E-Mails on her computer. She stopped at the library and picked up a new book to read, hoping she might run into Nikola but he wasn't there. She didn't have the energy to go to the lab, so she just went back to her room.

She walked into the sitting room and stopped dead. There was a door in the wall to her right that hadn't been there this morning. It hadn't, had it? Was she losing her mind? Then, she realized that was the wall between her suite and Nikola's.

"Nikola!" she shouted angrily. There was no response. With renewed energy she strode over to the door, unlocked the deadbolt and opened it. She walked into his suite and called again, but he wasn't there. She took out her phone and called him.

"Nikola, get up here now . . . you know perfectly well where." She hung up and stood fuming.

Nikola arrived, walking into her suite through the hallway door she had left open.

"What is the meaning of this? Who gave you permission to install this door?"

"I didn't know I needed permission. It just seemed the sensible thing to do, so I'm right here if you need me; and it's got a lock on your side" he said defensively.

"You cannot simply go about making alterations in the Sanctuary without discussing it first. This is my wall too!"

"You never said I couldn't. If you want to make up new rules, you can't make them retroactive."

"I can do anything I want, this is my Sanctuary. I planned it, I built it, and I won't have you mucking about with it."

Nikola shrugged and said "Sorry". She was angry right now; his best action was to let her cool off. In truth, the door didn't make much difference; it just saved him from going around through the hallway and kept the kids from knowing what he was doing.

They stood silently for a moment and then he asked in a small voice "Did you like the pineapple?"

Helen sighed and calmed herself. "Yes, I liked the pineapple. But really Nikola, you mustn't just do things like this."

"Fine, no more doors without asking first. Did you ever put up the pigeon coop you promised me or should I build my own?"

"Build your own if you like, but remember, only ten pigeons."

"Sure." _Until they make cute little baby pigeons that you couldn't possibly throw out into the cold, cruel world. Better build the coop for twenty._

Nikola was smiling as he went through the new connecting door to his own suite, making Helen wonder what he had up his sleeve now. Helen closed the door firmly, locked it, and wedged the back of a chair under the knob. He wasn't coming in that way if she could help it.

She went several days without seeing him, but she checked the roof every so often. A pile of lumber appeared one day, a suspiciously large framework the next, and an elaborate walk-in pigeon coop appeared on the third, all without any sign of him. Well, there was some lighting at night and he had excellent night vision so he could be up there hammering at two in the morning for all she knew.

At the weekly status meeting Nikola reported that he had finished all the basic patent applications for the inventions he had left behind at SCIU, and was working diligently on applications for variations and improvements. The only other thing he had to report was that he was taking a short trip to New York to pick up some of his favorite pigeons.

Several days later she knew he'd returned when she went out into the hall and found a trail of small feathers, seed hulls, and some whitish lumps she didn't look at too closely. Biggie was slowly working his way down the hall cleaning up.

"We just got him trained on the wine bottles" he complained. "What's he going to do next? He's not going to have birds inside is he?"

"Definitely not, I'll see to that right now."

She went out on the roof and walked quietly over to the coop where Nikola was just finishing transferring his birds. She stood back and just watched him for a few minutes. He handled the birds gently, petting and cuddling them and talking to them in a low murmur that she couldn't make out. He looked so happy she was glad she had allowed him the coop, even though she knew that the birds would be a bit messy.

He looked up at her when he had eased the last bird into its place. He simply said "Thank you Helen." He sounded sincere, and for once she believed him.

"Do you have enough food for them?" she asked, even though she knew perfectly well he did. There were two huge closed bins that she was quite sure was full of the best seed he could buy.

"Yeah, but I'll let them settle before I feed them." He shifted topics. "How are you feeling? I haven't seen you much since we got back."

"I'm fine Nikola; I'm even caught up on my work."

"No more pain? No stiffness? Your energy level is back to normal?"

"No pain, no stiffness, and my energy level is excellent. Why all the questions?"

Nikola looked at her and she saw the light of mischief in his eyes. "I just wanted to make sure you were completely recovered before we scheduled the make out session you owe me."

"Are we back to that?"

"You promised. You don't want to get a reputation for breaking your promises, do you?"

Helen realized she was not going to get out of it; maybe she didn't want to get out of it. Kissing Nikola had been highly enjoyable, so why procrastinate? She said "You're right, I owe you a make out session. How about tonight, here on the roof?"

Nikola sauntered closer until he was standing right in front of her. He put his hands on her waist and said "Tonight will do, but not on the roof. Too public, and besides, now the pigeons will be watching us up here."

Helen gripped his arms lightly, making sure his hands didn't wander. "Where then?"

"Your sitting room. If you take the chair away from the door I can come and go and the rest of your employees won't get jealous."

She looked in his eyes and saw only sincerity. Not that that convinced her, she knew him too well. "Very well, but just the sitting room. My bedroom is off limits."

"Of course." He gave up on the sincerity and pulled her a little closer.

She moved back, disentangling herself. "Tonight, Nikola, not now."

"I'll be counting the minutes- literally. Eight?"

"Fine, I'll see you at eight."

Nikola grinned and walked away jauntily. Helen followed him slowly; she wanted to do some thinking before tonight.

She didn't get much work done the rest of the day, and only had a light supper. She went to her suite and sat on the couch in the sitting room, imagining a conversation between them. Only in this type of situation, there was no way to predict what Nikola might say. But she finally decided what she wanted to tell him.

He was prompt. Precisely at eight there was a light tapping on the connecting door, and Helen unlocked it and let him in. He had both a red and a white wine and two glasses. He uncorked the white and poured, and they sat next to each other on the couch and sipped it.

By unspoken agreement they both put their glasses down on the table and leaned toward each other for a light kiss. They kissed again, harder, with more passion, but Helen drew back.

"Nikola, it's time we settled this."

"This is not the time for talking." He reached for her again, but she stopped him.

"Nikola, do you love me?"

"You know the answer to that."

She cocked her head and waited silently.

Reluctantly Nikola said "Yes, I love you."

There was silence, then Helen asked "Why don't you ask me back?"

"Because I don't know what you'll say. If you say no, that would be . . . " Nikola stopped, looking at her with pain in his eyes. _More than I can bear, my love._

"I used to be a little afraid of your vampire side, afraid that if we were together and you got excited and changed, that I might be in danger. I know better now. I know you would never hurt me. We've been in the same bed together all night and I never got a scratch from your claws. I've kissed you with a mouthful of fangs, and I wasn't cut. I'm not afraid of you anymore, Nikola, why are afraid of my answer?"

Nikola was silent, not sure what words to use; maybe it was best to just say it.

"You love John. You were engaged to him, you had a child with him. Whenever he shows up, your attention is all on him. And when he wasn't around, there was James, and others like that woman scientist you spent the night with. I'm not even sure if I'm third; I know I've never been first on your list."

"John is gone."

"Is he? We don't know that. If he comes back, it will be all John again."

"Nikola, I don't love John. My love for him died that night when I saw him murder a woman right in front of me. It took me a long time to realize it, that's all. And James was a comfort for me, a safe haven. We loved each other, but there was never a grand passion between us, and he's gone now too. The others never meant anything, just a moment of warmth in a long, lonely life."

"And that's why you don't mind being with me, a little. Because I'm here, and I'm likely to be here for a long time. A lot of moments of warmth in your life, whenever you need one."

"For a smart man you are being remarkably stupid. Stand up."

Nikola stood, but he had no idea what she was doing or why. Although he resented the "stupid" remark, he couldn't refute it; sometimes Helen baffled him.

"Now ask me."

Nikola said reluctantly "Okay. Okay, if I have to. Do you love me, Helen?"

"Yes, I love you, you ridiculous Serb. Come here." To his shock she put her fingers down the front of his pants and grabbed him by the belt, pulling him to her. She let go and put her hands around his waist under his jacket, stepping into him belly to belly.

She started kissing him and he woke up from his astonishment and fervently kissed her back. His eyes opened wide again when her hands slid down to his buttocks and squeezed, as she rubbed against him in front.

He broke off the kiss first. "Do you mean it? You mean it, good god, you mean it." Helen stepped out of the embrace and headed toward the bedroom.

"Bring the wine, Nikola" she called back to him.

"Wine? What wine? Who needs wine? Oh right, the wine." He grabbed the glasses and bottles and trailed after her.

In the bedroom Helen put the glasses and bottles within easy reach of the bed and poured them each another of the white. She held her glass up in a toast.

"To us, for all the years to come. To you, Nikola; you're not just first on the list, you're the whole list."

"And to you Helen; you are my passion, and the only woman I have ever loved mind, body and soul. To us together, for years, centuries, millennia . . . eternity."

Helen smiled and drained her glass as did Nikola. She put the glasses with the bottles and circled him slowly.

"Let me see. This first . . ." she said as she unbuttoned his vest and slid it off of him with his suit jacket. She placed them neatly over the back of a chair, then came back and removed his tie, tossing it over the jacket. When she started on his shirt, he reached for her blouse but she batted his hands away.

"No, I get to play first."

Nikola spread his hands out to the side and said "I am always your willing playground."

She kissed him then finished unbuttoning his shirt and relieved him of it along with his undershirt. The clothes hit the floor as she ran her hands over his nicely muscled chest and up into his hair, pulling his head to her and kissing him passionately. Nikola put his arms around her, tentatively at first, not sure if she would permit it. When Helen didn't object, he held her more firmly and tried to move them toward the bed.

She stopped him and stepped back. "I'm not quite done yet."

"You know this is torture."

"Sweet torture?"

"Very sweet torture."

She unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned his pants and unzipped his fly. She slid off his underwear with his trousers and he slipped out of his shoes and stepped out of the pants, leaving him in his socks. They both looked down at his socks and started laughing.

"Do you really want them on?"

Nikola blushed a little. "If you don't mind."

"Not a bit." Helen led him over to the bed and poured him a glass of wine. She said "Sit, now it's my turn."

"Don't I get to . . . ?"

"No, tomorrow night you can unwrap your present any way you please, tonight is my turn."

Nikola sat, marveling at "tomorrow night". They were going to do this again tomorrow night? He was glad he'd already gotten his pigeons; he might never leave the Sanctuary again.

Helen slowly and sensuously undressed for him. Then she took the wine glass from his hand, finished the wine, and set the glass aside out of the way. She climbed into bed with him.

They kissed, fondled and explored each other. He was partially on top of her when she murmured "What position do you want to try first?"

"It's ladies night. Don't think about it just do it."

She pushed him over and straddled him.

"Oh, you like being on top, do you?" he teased.

"Sometimes. But I'm sure you're strong enough to not squish me if I'm on the bottom."

After that they didn't talk for a long time. Nikola proved she was right, twice, and that she couldn't possibly squish him if he was underneath three times before they finally went to sleep.

When Nikola awoke in the morning he wasn't vamped, although he was fairly certain he'd had to use his vampire form for the sake of stamina at least once or twice during the night. He also noted that he'd lost both his socks, but his feet weren't at all cold.

He wrapped himself more firmly around Helen and said softly "Helen, it's moorrniinng."

She groaned and her eyes opened a little. "Already?"

"Well that's what happens when you stay up and play on your playground half the night." He nibbled her ear and she woke up fully.

Nikola continued "I'm going to go shower and get dressed. Now aren't you glad I put in the connecting door? I can go back to my own suite without any of the staff seeing me."

Helen sat up. "Oh good heavens, we're going to have to tell everyone . . . something, but I don't know what."

"Why tell them anything?"

"Because I don't have any stupid people working for me, they're going to notice something has changed between us."

"Well dearest, you figure it out while I go make myself presentable. Hey, I get to be there when you tell them, right?"

"You had better be there and we are going to tell them together" Helen said firmly.

"Yes ma'am" Nikola said, but kissed her soundly before he gathered up his clothes, the wine bottles and glasses, and left through the new connecting door. She didn't put the chair back under the knob or even bother locking it.

Helen let her staff know there would be a meeting at 1:00 pm. Hopefully everyone would be in a receptive mood right after lunch.

Biggie came in a little before one and stood against the wall. Henry and Will hurried in just at one and took chairs. Nikola was being incredibly obvious, standing beside and a little behind her chair, but no one realized his position was significant- yet.

Helen cleared her throat. "I called you here to inform you about a change in status . . . no, that's not right, exactly. Nothing is really changing, but I thought you should know . . . ". Her voice faltered and stopped, and she looked up at Nikola.

"What Helen is trying to find a polite way of saying, is that she and I are in love, and last night we had acrobatic monkey sex- five times. And tonight we're going to have more . . . "

"NIKOLA!" Helen yelled. Everyone was looking at them with their mouths open, half expecting her to pull out gun and shoot him. Instead, she was blushing furiously, which convinced all of them that what Tesla had said was actually true.

Will said "Does that mean that _he's_ second in command now?" at the same time that Henry said "Doc, have you lost your mind? That's _Tesla._" Biggie was just looking back and forth between the two of them, his mouth still open.

Helen held up her hands. "Enough! No Will, Nikola may be King of the Vampires but you are my second in command. Henry, I have not lost my mind any more than anyone else in love. Biggie, do you have a comment too?"

Biggie had finally recovered his composure. "Congratulations to you both. If there's nothing else, I'll get back to work now."

Henry and Will were staring at him. He said to them "What? They have the right to be together if they want. They both waited long enough, and at least now I won't have to clean up any more of the plant parts they were leaving all over." He shook his head at them, pointedly picked up the pineapple from her desk, and left.

Henry and Will looked at each other. Will said "Acrobatic monkey sex?"

Henry replied "Ewww. I don't even want to think about it." Henry stood up and added "Yeah, congrats Doc and . . . uh, Nikola." He shook his head as if he were trying to get a certain image out of his mind, and walked out.

Will stood up. "I guess I'd better get back to work too."

Helen looked concerned. "That's all you have to say?"

"Okay, fine. I think you two are probably going to kill each other but you're both old enough to make your own decisions without my two cents." He looked at Helen. "Magnus, I wish you all the luck in the world. If you need me, you know where I'll be." He left as well.

Nikola looked after him and commented "Well that was rude."

Helen stood up and faced him. "Nikola, you were crude, and I don't appreciate it."

"I got it over with fast, didn't I? The way you were tippy-toeing around we would have been here all afternoon."

"True, but next time perhaps we could meet somewhere in the middle?"

Nikola moved in close and took her in his arms. "In the middle, the beginning, or the end, just as long as we meet."

Helen smiled, wrapped her arms around him, and passionately kissed him.

THE END

(or maybe a new beginning)


End file.
